Motivational Quotes

Quotations

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

Best Quotes about Quotations

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

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

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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

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

Brendan Francis

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

Talmud, The

Our best thoughts come from others.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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

Robert Chapman

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

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

10.

Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.

11.

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

Baldwin, James

12.

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.

13.

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

Morely, John

14.

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

Samuel Johnson

15.

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

Gates, W. I. E.

16.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

17.

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

Robert Benchley

18.

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

Mark Twain

19.

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

20.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

21.

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

22.

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

Samuel Johnson

23.

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

Malcolm, Janet

24.

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

25.

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

Hassan, Ihab

26.

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

Seneca

27.

Famous remarks are very seldom quoted correctly.

Simeon Strunsky

28.

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

H. L. Mencken

29.

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

30.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

31.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

32.

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

33.

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

Orson Welles

34.

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

George Bernard Shaw

35.

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

Edwin P. Whipple

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Anatole France

40.

A short saying oft contains much wisdom.

Sophocles

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.

Hassan, Ihab

44.

Quotations are useful in periods of ignorance or obscurantist beliefs.

Debord, Guy

45.

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

Andre Malraux

46.

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

Wilson, Woodrow T.

47.

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

48.

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

Ambrose Bierce

49.

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

David H. Comins

50.

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