Motivational Quotes

Quotations

When a thing has been said and well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.

- Anatole France

Best Quotes about Quotations

Quotation... A writer expresses himself in words that have been used before because they give his meaning better than he can give it himself, or because they are beautiful or witty, or because he expects them to touch a cord of association in his reader, or because he wishes to show that he is learned and well read. Quotations due to the last motive are invariably ill-advised; the discerning reader detects it and is contemptuous; the undiscerning is perhaps impressed, but even then is at the same time repelled, pretentious quotations being the surest road to tedium.

Fowler, Henry W.

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages is preserved into perpetuity by a nation's proverbs, fables, folk sayings and quotations.

William Feather

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

Quotations in my work are like wayside robbers who leap out armed and relieve the stroller of his conviction.

Benjamin, Walter

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

Ambrose Bierce

I quote others in order to better express myself.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

A quotation, like a pun, should come unsought, and then be welcomed only for some propriety of felicity justifying the intrusion.

Robert Chapman

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

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

10.

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

11.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

12.

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

Malcolm, Janet

13.

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

14.

Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.

15.

I must claim the quoter's privilege of giving only as much of the text as will suit my purpose, said Tan-Chun. If I told you how it went on, I should end up by contradicting myself!

Cao Xueqin

16.

A quotation at the right moment is like bread to the famished.

Talmud, The

17.

Quotations are useful in periods of ignorance or obscurantist beliefs.

Debord, Guy

18.

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

19.

When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living.

Baldwin, James

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

23.

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

H. L. Mencken

24.

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

Edward Young

25.

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

Samuel Johnson

26.

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

Cross, Amanda

27.

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

Seneca

28.

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

Gates, W. I. E.

29.

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

30.

I not only use all the brains I have but all I can borrow.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

31.

He wrapped himself in quotations- as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.

Rudyard Kipling

32.

Misquotations are the only quotations that are never misquoted.

Hesketh Pearson

33.

Why are not more gems from our great authors scattered over the country? Great books are not in everybody's reach; and though it is better to know them thoroughly than to know them only here and there, yet it is a good work to give a little to those who have not the time nor means to get more.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

34.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

35.

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

Peacock, Thomas Love

36.

He wrapped himself in quotations -- as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.

Kipling, Rudyard

37.

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

38.

When a thing has been said and well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.

Anatole France

39.

When we would prepare the mind by a forcible appeal, and opening quotation is a symphony precluding on the chords those tones we are about to harmonize.

Disraeli, Benjamin

40.

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

41.

What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.

Mark Twain

42.

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

C. E. Montague

43.

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

Robert M. Hamilton

44.

I never have found the perfect quote. At best I have been able to find a string of quotations which merely circle the ineffable idea I seek to express.

Caldwell O'Keefe

45.

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.

Pearson, Hesketh

46.

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

Dan Quayle

47.

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

Samuel Johnson

48.

I didn't really say everything I said.

Yogi Berra

49.

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