Motivational Quotes

Quotations

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

Best Quotes about Quotations

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

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

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

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

Cross, Amanda

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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

Doctor Who

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

Alfred North Whitehead

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

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

Talmud, The

10.

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

Anatole France

11.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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.

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

George Bernard Shaw

14.

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

15.

I quote others in order to better express myself.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

16.

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

17.

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.

18.

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

Kipling, Rudyard

19.

Our best thoughts come from others.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

20.

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

Mark Twain

21.

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

Samuel Johnson

22.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

23.

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

24.

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

Edward Young

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

28.

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

29.

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

Robert M. Hamilton

30.

There is not less wit nor less invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought.

Pierre Bayle

31.

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

32.

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

Benjamin, Walter

33.

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

Gates, W. I. E.

34.

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

35.

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

Malcolm, Janet

36.

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

Odets, Clifford

37.

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

Edwin P. Whipple

38.

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

Wilson, Woodrow T.

39.

Davies, Robertson

40.

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

41.

Life itself is a quotation.

Jorge Luis Borges

42.

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

43.

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

Andre Malraux

44.

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

Seneca

45.

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

46.

I didn't really say everything I said.