Motivational Quotes

Quotations

A quotation in a speech, article or book is like a rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks with authority.

- Brendan Francis

Best Quotes about Quotations

I didn't really say everything I said.

Yogi Berra

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

Benjamin Disraeli

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

There are two kinds of marriages -- where the husband quotes the wife and where the wife quotes the husband.

Odets, Clifford

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

Benjamin, Walter

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

A quotation in a speech, article or book is like a rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks with authority.

Brendan Francis

I quote others in order to better express myself.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

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

Cross, Amanda

10.

Our best thoughts come from others.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

11.

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

Samuel Johnson

12.

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

Anatole France

13.

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

14.

Be careful -- with quotations, you can damn anything.

Andre Malraux

15.

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

16.

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

Ambrose Bierce

17.

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

Samuel Johnson

18.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

19.

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

Robert Chapman

20.

Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.

Alfred North Whitehead

21.

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

Wilson, Woodrow T.

22.

The essence of a quote is the compression of a mass of thought and observation into a single saying.

Morely, John

23.

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

24.

The profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until an equal mind and heart finds and publishes it.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

25.

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

George Bernard Shaw

26.

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

David H. Comins

27.

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

28.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

29.

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

Mark Twain

30.

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

Kipling, Rudyard

31.

An epigram often flashes light into regions where reason shines but dimly.

Edwin P. Whipple

32.

Quotations are useful in periods of ignorance or obscurantist beliefs.

Debord, Guy

33.

Now we sit through Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations.

Orson Welles

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Rudyard Kipling

37.

Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.

38.

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

39.

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.

Sir Winston Churchill

40.

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

41.

I have suffered a great deal from writers who have quoted this or that sentence of mine either out of its context or in juxtaposition to some incongruous matter which quite distorted my meaning , or destroyed it altogether.

Alfred North Whitehead

42.

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

Peacock, Thomas Love

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

Hassan, Ihab

46.

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

Talmud, The

47.

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

Baldwin, James

48.

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?