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
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
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 neither time nor means to get more. Let every bookworm, when in any fragrant, scarce old tome he discovers a sentence, a story, an illustration, that does his heart good, hasten to give it.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
Proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experienced the truth of them.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Satirist, Short Story Writer
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
A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
One must be a wise reader to quote wisely and well.
—Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) American Teacher, Writer, Philosopher
Everything has been thought of before, but the problem is to think of it again.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
One original thought is worth a thousand mindless quotings.
—Diogenes Laertius (f.3rd Century CE) Biographer of the Greek Philosophers
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.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Selected thoughts depend for their flavor upon the terseness of their expression, for thoughts are grains of sugar or salt, that must be melted in a drop of water.
—Jean Antoine Petit-Senn (1792–1870) French-Swiss Lyric Poet
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
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 Leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
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
I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
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
A thing is never too often repeated which is never sufficiently learned.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
Life itself is a quotation.
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine Writer, Essayist, Poet
One whom it is easier to hate, but still easier to quote—Alexander Pope.
—Augustine Birrell (1850–1933) English Politician, Essayist
Aphorisms are essentially an aristocratic genre of writing. The aphorist does not argue or explain, he asserts; and implicit in his assertion is a conviction that he is wiser and more intelligent than his readers.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
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
The profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until an equal mind and heart finds and publishes it.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
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
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
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 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
Some, for renown, on scraps of learning dote, and think they grow immortal as they quote.
—Edward Young (1683–1765) English Poet
Quotations can be valuable, like raisins in the rice pudding, for adding iron as well as eye appeal.
—Peg Bracken (1918–2007) American Author
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