Motivational Quotes

Quotations

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

- Samuel Johnson

Best Quotes about Quotations

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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

Morely, John

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

Talmud, The

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

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

Wilson, Woodrow T.

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

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I didn't really say everything I said.

Yogi Berra

10.

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

11.

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

12.

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

George Bernard Shaw

13.

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

14.

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

Ambrose Bierce

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

Woolf, Virginia

20.

Life itself is a quotation.

Jorge Luis Borges

21.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes

22.

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

Anatole France

23.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

24.

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

Fadiman, Clifton

25.

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

Doctor Who

26.

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

27.

Our best thoughts come from others.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

28.

A short saying oft contains much wisdom.

Sophocles

29.

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

Hassan, Ihab

30.

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

C. E. Montague

31.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

32.

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

Gates, W. I. E.

33.

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

34.

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

Cross, Amanda

35.

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

Odets, Clifford

36.

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

37.

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

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

38.

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

Kipling, Rudyard

39.

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

Peacock, Thomas Love

40.

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

41.

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

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.

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

David H. Comins

44.

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

H. L. Mencken

45.

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

Baldwin, James

46.

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

Robert Chapman

47.

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

Alfred North Whitehead

48.

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

Robert M. Hamilton

49.

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

50.

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

Mark Twain