Motivational Quotes

Quotations

A book of quotations . . . can never be complete.

- Robert M. Hamilton

Best Quotes about Quotations

I think we must quote whenever we feel that the allusion is interesting or helpful or amusing.

Fadiman, Clifton

I am reminded of the professor who, in his declining hours, was asked by his devoted pupils for his final counsel. He replied,'Verify your quotations.'

Sir Winston Churchill

Great speeches have always had great soundbites. The problem now is that the young technicians who put together speeches are paying attention only to the soundbite, not to the text as a whole, not realizing that all great soundbites happen by accident, which is to say, all great soundbites are yielded up inevitably, as part of the natural expression of the text. They are part of the tapestry, they aren't a little flower somebody sewed on.

Noonan, Peggy

What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?

Doctor Who

Life itself is a quotation.

Jorge Luis Borges

I didn't really say everything I said.

Yogi Berra

Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote, And think they grow immortal as they quote.

Edward Young

To be amused by what you read--that is the great spring of happy quotations.

C. E. Montague

I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.

Marlene Dietrich

10.

What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole, its body brevity, and wit its soul.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

11.

In quoting of books, quote such authors as are usually read; others you may read for your own satisfaction, but not name them.

Selden, John

12.

A fine quotation is a diamond in the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand of a fool.

Roux, Joseph

13.

Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.

Samuel Johnson

14.

Misquotation is, in fact, the pride and privilege of the learned. A widely- read man never quotes accurately, for the rather obvious reason that he has read too widely.

Hesketh Pearson

15.

A short saying oft contains much wisdom.

Sophocles

16.

Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

17.

Stronger than an army is a quotation whose time has come.

Gates, W. I. E.

18.

Our best thoughts come from others.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

19.

Though collecting quotations could be considered as merely an ironic mimetism -- victimless collecting, as it were... in a world that is well on its way to becoming one vast quarry, the collector becomes someone engaged in a pious work of salvage. The course of modern history having already sapped the traditions and shattered the living wholes in which precious objects once found their place, the collector may now in good conscience go about excavating the choicer, more emblematic fragments.

Sontag, Susan

20.

I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.

Seneca

21.

Too much traffic with a quotation book begets a conviction of ignorance in a sensitive reader. Not only is there a mass of quotable stuff he never quotes, but an even vaster realm of which he has never heard.

Davies, Robertson

22.

I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.

George Bernard Shaw

23.

That is the point of quotations. One can use another's words to be insulting.

Cross, Amanda

24.

The next best thing to saying a good thing yourself, is to quote one.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

25.

Misquotations are the only quotations that are never misquoted.

Hesketh Pearson

26.

Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.

Ambrose Bierce

27.

Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted than when we read it in the original author?

Philip G. Hamerton

28.

Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.

29.

Next to being witty yourself, the best thing is being able to quote another's wit.

Bovee, Christian Nevell

30.

A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

31.

A fine quotation is a diamond on the finger of a man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool.

Joseph Roux

32.

I pick my favorite quotation and store them in my mind as ready armor, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence.

Burns, Robert

33.

I might repeat to myself slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound - if I can remember any of the damn things.

Dorothy Parker

34.

A book that furnishes no quotations is no book -- it is a plaything.

Peacock, Thomas Love

35.

The American people would not want to know of any misquotes that Dan Quayle may or may not make.

Dan Quayle

36.

If you have any doubts that we live in a society controlled by men, try reading down the index of contributors to a volume of quotations, looking for women's names.

Elaine Gill

37.

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

Samuel Johnson

38.

He presents me with what is always an acceptable gift who brings me news of a great thought before unknown. He enriches me without impoverishing himself.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

39.

Quotations are useful in periods of ignorance or obscurantist beliefs.

Debord, Guy

40.

People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first.

David H. Comins

41.

Quotations offer one kind of break in what the eye can see, the ear can hear.

Hassan, Ihab

42.

Quotes from Mao, Castro, and Che Guevara... are as germane to our highly technological, computerized society as a stagecoach on a jet runway at Kennedy airport.

Alinsky, Saul

43.

The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation.

Benjamin Disraeli

44.

A book of quotations . . . can never be complete.

Robert M. Hamilton

45.

In the dying world I come from quotation is a national vice. It used to be the classics, now it's lyric verse.

Waugh, Evelyn

46.

The habit some writers indulge in of perpetual quotation is one it behooves lovers of good literature to protest against, for it is an insidious habit which in the end must cloud the stream of thought, or at least check spontaneity. If it be true that le style c'est l homme, what is likely to happen if l homme is for ever eking out his own personality with that of some other individual?

Smyth, Dame Ethel

47.

Fidelity to the subject's thought and to his characteristic way of expressing himself is the sine qua non of journalistic quotation.

Malcolm, Janet

48.

After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations.

H. L. Mencken

49.

Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

50.

The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him.