Children seldom misquote. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn’t have said.
—Anonymous
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.
—Saul Alinsky (1909–72) American Community Organizer, Political Theorist
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.
—Robertson Davies (1913–95) Canadian Novelist, Playwright, Essayist
A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
In literature, quotation is good only when the writer whom I follow goes my way, and, being better mounted than I, gives me a cast, as we say; but if I like the gay equipage so well as to go out of my road, I had better have gone afoot.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Quotations in my work are like wayside robbers who leap out armed and relieve the stroller of his conviction.
—Walter Benjamin
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
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
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
A book that furnishes no quotations is no book—it is a plaything.
—Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866) English Satirist, Novelist, Author
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
Wisdom is meaningless until your own experience has given it meaning, and there is wisdom in the selection of wisdom.
—Bergen Evans
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 (1926–2022) Queen of United Kingdom
A good thought is a great boon for which God is first to be thanked; next, he who is the first to utter it; and then in a lesser but still a considerable degree, the friend who is the first to quote it to us.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American Writer, Aphorist
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
The multiplicity of facts and writings is become so great that everything must soon be reduced to extracts.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.
—Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English Mathematician, Philosopher
Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay to an author.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted.
—Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American Actor, Comedian, Singer
Everything has been thought of before, but the problem is to think of it again.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
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-American Film Actress, Cabaret Performer
Have at you with a proverb.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living.
—James Baldwin (1924–87) American Novelist, Social Critic
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
The essence of a quote is the compression of a mass of thought and observation into a single saying.
—John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Political Leader, Writer, Editor, Journalist
Wise sayings often fall on barren ground, but a kind word is never thrown away.
—Arthur Helps (1813–75) British Essayist, Historian
I improve on misquotation.
—Cary Grant (1904–86) British-American Film Actor