Motivational Quotes

Quotations

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

- Robert Chapman

Best Quotes about Quotations

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

Peacock, Thomas Love

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.

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

Cross, Amanda

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

Edward Young

Our best thoughts come from others.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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

Fadiman, Clifton

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

Kipling, Rudyard

10.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

11.

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

12.

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

Andre Malraux

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

17.

I didn't really say everything I said.

Yogi Berra

18.

Life itself is a quotation.

Jorge Luis Borges

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.

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

Ambrose Bierce

21.

We rarely quote nowadays to appeal to authority... though we quote sometimes to display our sapience and erudition. Some authors we quote against. Some we quote not at all, offering them our scrupulous avoidance, and so make them part of our white mythology. Other authors we constantly invoke, chanting their names in cerebral rituals of propitiation or ancestor worship.

Hassan, Ihab

22.

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

Malcolm, Janet

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

Robert Chapman

26.

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

27.

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

28.

One has to secrete a jelly in which to slip quotations down people's throats --and one always secretes too much jelly.

Woolf, Virginia

29.

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

Alfred North Whitehead

30.

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

Talmud, The

31.

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

32.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

33.

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

34.

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

Anatole France

35.

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

H. L. Mencken

36.

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

Benjamin, Walter

37.

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

38.

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

Wilson, Woodrow T.

39.

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

David H. Comins

40.

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

Robert Benchley

41.

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

C. E. Montague

42.

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

43.

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

Brendan Francis

44.

I quote others in order to better express myself.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

45.

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

46.

Famous remarks are very seldom quoted correctly.