Quotations

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This page is for quotations about quotations and quoting.

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  • It needs no dictionary of quotations to remind me that the eyes are the windows of the soul.
  • The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. That remark in itself wouldn’t make any sense if quoted as it stands.
    • Robert Benchley, in "Quick Quotations" in My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew (1936)
  • Life itself is a quotation.
    • Jorge Luis Borges, quoted in Cool Memories (1987) by Jean Baudrillard, (trans. 1990) Ch. 5
  • At all events, the next best thing to being witty one's self, is to be able to quote another's wit.
    • Christopher N. Bovee, Thoughts, Feelings, and Fancies (1857)
  • Quotations can be valuable, like raisins in the rice pudding, for adding iron as well as eye appeal.
  • The great writers of aphorisms read as if they had all known each other very well.
  • 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.
  • There is nothing so ridiculous but some philosopher has said it.
  • Beware of thinkers whose minds function only when they are fueled by a quotation.
  • Exclusively of the abstract science, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms: and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism.
  • Why are not more gems from our early prose writers scattered over the country by the periodicals?…But Great old books of the great old authors 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 neither time nor means to get more. Let every book-worm, when in any fragrant, scarce old tome, he discovers a sentence, a story, an illustration, that does his heart good, hasten to give it the widest circulation that newspapers and magazines, penny and halfpenny, can afford.
  • Quotation brings to many one of the intensest joys of living.
    • Bernard Darwin, Introduction, The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 1st Edition (1941)
  • The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations.
  • 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, Journals (May 1849)
    • Emerson is referring to the act of quotation in regard to the subject of "immortality", and the unreliability of second hand testimony or worse upon profound subjects; ironically, it is often taken out of proper context, and has even begun appearing on the internet as "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know" or sometimes just "I hate quotations."
  • Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it. Many will read the book before one thinks of quoting a passage. As soon as he has done this, that line will be quoted east and west.
  • By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.
  • A great man quotes bravely, and will not draw on his invention when his memory serves him with a word just as good.
  • Some men's words I remember so well that I must often use them to express my thought. Yes, because I perceive that we have heard the same truth, but they have heard it better.
  • When a thing has been said and well said, have no scruple; take it and copy it. Give references ? Why should you ? Either your readers know where you have taken the passage and the precaution is needless, or they do not know and you humiliate them.
    • Anatole France, quoted in Anatole France Himself - A Boswellian Record by Jean Jacques Brousson
  • But quotations and aphorisms are generally just verbal Christmas presents; enticingly done up in pretty paper and ribbons, but once you get them open they generally turn out to be just socks.
  • An apt quotation is like a lamp which flings its light over the whole sentence.
  • She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit…
  • Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.
  • Je ne dis les autres, sinon pour d'autant plus me dire.
    • I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.
    • Michel de Montaigne, "Of the Education of Children" (1575)
    • Variant: Je ne cite les autres que pour mieux exprimer ma pensée.
      • I quote others only the better to express myself.
  • 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.
  • The next best thing to being clever is being able to quote someone who is.
    • Mary Pettibone Poole, A Glass Eye at a Keyhole (1938)
  • Quotes are just fancy ways of stating the obvious
    • Gerald Prunty, Sleepfighting
  • Those quotations were really quite obscure. Anyone can see that he is a very well-read man.
  • A fine quotation is a diamond on the finger of a man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool.
  • Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
  • I always have a quotation for everything—it saves original thinking.
  • A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought.
  • I shall never be ashamed to quote a bad author if what he says is good.
  • The best ideas are common property.
  • It's better to be quotable than to be honest.
  • It is also naïve empiricism to provide, in support of some argument, series of eloquent confirmatory quotes by dead authorities. By searching, you can always find someone who made a well-sounding statement that confirms your point of view—and, on every topic, it is possible to find another dead thinker who said the exact opposite.
  • I like quoting Einstein. Know why? Because nobody dares contradict you.
  • Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

[edit] On Misquotation

  • Quotation. The act of repeating erroneously the words of another. The words erroneously repeated.
  • I got $25 from Reader's Digest last week for something I never said. I get credit all the time for things I never said.
  • When you see yourself quoted in print and you're sorry you said it, it suddenly becomes a misquotation.
  • My toils in the quotation field have led me to formulate two or three laws about the way people use and abuse quotations. My first law is: When in doubt, ascribe all quotations to Bernard Shaw – which I don't mean to be taken literally, but as a general observation of the habit people have of attaching remarks to the nearest obvious speaker.
    • Nigel Rees, Sayings of the Century (London: Allen & Unwin, 1987) p. iv.
  • An analagous process I shall call Churchillian Drift...Whereas quotations with an apothegmatic feel are normally ascribed to Shaw, those with a more grandiose or belligerent tone are, as if by osmosis, credited to Churchill. All humorous remarks obviously made by a female originated, of course, with Dorothy Parker. All quotations in translation, on the other hand, should be attributed to Goethe (with "I think" obligatory).
    • Nigel Rees, Brewer's Quotations (London: Cassell, 1994) p. x.
  • The Rules of Misquotation:
    • Axiom 1. Any quotation that can be altered will be.
      • Corollary 1A: Vivid words hook misquotes in the mind.
      • Corollary 1B: Numbers are hard to keep straight.
      • Corollary 1C: Small changes can have a big impact (or: what a difference an a makes).
      • Corollary 1D: If noted figures don't say what needs to be said, we'll say it for them.
      • Corollary 1E: Journalists are a less than dependable source of accurate quotes.
      • Corollary 1F: Famous dead people make excellent commentators on current events.
    • Axiom 2. Famous quotes need famous mouths.
      • Corollary 2A: Well-known messengers get credit for clever comments they report from less celebrated mouths.
      • Corollary 2B: Particularly quotable figures receive more than their share of quotable quotes.
      • Corollary 2C: Comments made about someone might as well have been said by that person.
      • Corollary 2D: Who you think said something may depend on where you live.
      • Corollary 2E: Vintage quotes are considered to be in the public domain.
      • Corollary 2F: In a pinch, any orphan quote can be called a Chinese proverb.
    • Ralph Keyes, "Nice Guys Finish Seventh": False Phrases, Spurious Sayings, and Familiar Misquotations (1992) ISBN 0062700200

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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