I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognizably wiser than oneself.
—Marlene Dietrich (1901–92) German-born American Actor, Singer
I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
In the dying world I come from quotation is a national vice. It used to be the classics, now it’s lyric verse.
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–66) British Novelist, Essayist, Biographer
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.’
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
The obscurest sayings of the truly great are often these which contain the germ of the profoundest and most useful truths.
—Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–72) Italian Patriot, Political Leader
Stay at home in your mind. Don’t recite other people’s opinions. I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
Next to being witty yourself, the best thing is being able to quote another’s wit.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American Writer, Aphorist
I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Luminous quotations atone, by their interest, for the dullness of an inferior book, and add to the value of a superior work by the variety which they lend to its style and treatment.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American Writer, Aphorist
If these little sparks of holy fire thus heaped up together do not give life to your prepared and already enkindled spirit, yet they will sometimes help to entertain a thought, to actuate a passion, to employ and hallow a fancy.
—Jeremy Taylor
Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay to an author.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
I quote others only the better to express myself.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
I pick my favorite quotation and store them in my mind as ready armor, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence.
—Robert Burns (1759–96) Scottish Poet, Songwriter
Life itself is a quotation.
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine Writer, Essayist, Poet
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.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Everything has been thought of before, but the problem is to think of it again.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
A couplet of verse, a period of prose, may cling to the rock of ages as a shell that survives a deluge.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
A book that furnishes no quotations is no book—it is a plaything.
—Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866) English Satirist, Novelist, Author
I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
Proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experienced the truth of them.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
I quote others in order to better express myself.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
Truth, like beauty, varies in its fashions, and is best recommended by different dresses to different minds; and he that recalls the attention of mankind to any part of learning which time has left behind it, may be truly said to advance the literature of his own age.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
One has to secrete a jelly in which to slip quotations down people’s throats—and one always secretes too much jelly.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
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.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
Have at you with a proverb.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
It is the beauty and independent worth of the citations, far more than their appropriateness, which have made Johnson’s Dictionary popular even as a reading-book.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
The wisdom of the wise and the experience of ages may be preserved by quotation.
—Isaac D’Israeli (1766–1848) English Writer, Scholar
A verse may find him who a sermon flies.
—George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh Anglican Poet, Orator, Clergyman
A fine quotation is a diamond on the finger of a man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool.
—Philibert Joseph Roux (1780–1854) French Surgeon
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 (1861–1947) English Mathematician, Philosopher
The wise men of old have sent most of their morality down the stream of time in the light skiff of apothegm or epigram.
—Edwin Percy Whipple (1819–86) American Literary Critic
By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
An apt quotation is like a lamp which flings its light over the whole sentence.
—Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–38) English Poet, Novelist
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read a book of quotations.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
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 (1715–63) Chinese Writer
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.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American Writer, Aphorist
With just enough of learning to misquote.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
We frequently fall into error and folly, not because the true principles of action are not known, but because for a time they are not remembered; he may, therefore, justly be numbered among the benefactors of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences that may early be impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to occur habitually to the mind.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Quotations in my work are like wayside robbers who leap out armed and relieve the stroller of his conviction.
—Walter Benjamin
The adventitious beauty of poetry may be felt in the greater delight with a verse given in a happy quotation than in the poem.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
He wrapped himself in quotations—as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of emperors.
—Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) British Children’s Books Writer, Short story, Novelist, Poet, Journalist
By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we quote,—We quote not only books and proverbs, but arts, sciences, religions, customs, and laws; nay, we quote temples and houses, tables and chairs by imitation.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Live so that your friends can defend you, but never have to.
—Arnold Glasow (1905–98) American Businessman
The best ideas are common property.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
I pluck up the goodlisome herbs of sentences by pruning, eat them by reading, digest them by musing, and lay them up at length in the high seat of memory by gathering them together; that so, having tasted their sweetness, I may the less perceive the bitterness of life.
—Queen Elizabeth II (b.1926) Queen of United Kingdom
Whoever reads only to transcribe or quote shining remarks without entering into the genius and spirit of the author, will be apt to be misled out of a regular way of thinking, and the product of all this will be found to be a manifest incoherent piece of patchwork.
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Irish Satirist
Quotations offer one kind of break in what the eye can see, the ear can hear.
—Ihab Hassan (1925–2015) Egypt-born American Literary Theorist, Writer
I have only made a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but the thread that ties them together.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
The next best thing to saying a good thing yourself, is to quote one.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher