Quotations Quotations
Quotations
From WikiquoteThis page is for quotations about quotations and quoting.
Contents |
Sourced
- It needs no dictionary of quotations to remind me that the eyes are the windows of the soul.
- Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson (1911)
- 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.
- Peg Bracken, I Didn't Come Here to Argue
- All which he understood by rote,
And, as occasion serv'd, would quote.
- Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part I (1663-64), Canto I, line 135.
- With just enough of learning to misquote.
- Lord Byron, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809), line 66.
- Perverts the Prophets, and purloins the Psalms.
- Lord Byron, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809), line 326.
- The great writers of aphorisms read as if they had all known each other very well.
- Elias Canetti, The Human Province (1942–1972)
- To copy beauties, forfeits all pretence
To fame—to copy faults, is want of sense.
- Charles Churchill, The Rosciad (1761), line 457.
- 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, Roving Commission: My Early Life (1930) Chapter 9
- There is nothing so ridiculous but some philosopher has said it.
- Cicero De Divinatione
- Beware of thinkers whose minds function only when they are fueled by a quotation.
- Emile Cioran, Anathemas and Admirations
- 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.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection (1825)
- 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.
- Hartley Coleridge, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lives of Northern Worthies, (1836) "Roger Ascham"
- Thou art a retailer of phrases, and dost deal in remnants of remnants.
- William Congreve, Act IV, scene ix, The Way of the World (1700)
- 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 preserved by quotations.
- Isaac D'Israeli, Curiosities of Literature (1791-1824), "Quotation"
- The art of quotation requires more delicacy in the practice than those conceive who see nothing more in a quotation than an extract.
- Isaac D'Israeli, Curiosities of Literature (1791–1824), "Quotation"
- Sometimes it seems the only accomplishment my education ever bestowed on me, the ability to think in quotations.
- Margaret Drabble, A Summer Bird-Cage (1963; New York: William Morrow, 1964) p. 49
- 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.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals v. 16 (1867)
- By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Quotation and Originality" in Letters and Social Aims (1876)
- A great man quotes bravely, and will not draw on his invention when his memory serves him with a word just as good.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Quotation and Originality" in Letters and Social Aims (1876)
- Quotation confesses inferiority.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims (1876)
- 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.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Lectures and Biographical Sketches (1883) "Character"
- 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.
- Tom Holt Barking (2007)
- An apt quotation is like a lamp which flings its light over the whole sentence.
- Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Romance and Reality
- She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit…
- W. Somerset Maugham The Creative Impulse (1926)
- Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.
- W. Somerset Maugham, A Winter's Notebook
- 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.
- Dorothy Parker, The Little Hours
- 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.
- Barbara Pym, Crampton Hodnet (c. 1940)
- 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, Meditations of a Parish Priest
- Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
- George Santayana, Little Essays (1920) "Reason in Ethics"
- I always have a quotation for everything—it saves original thinking.
- Dorothy L. Sayers, Have His Carcase (1932)
- A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought.
- Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night (1936)
- I shall never be ashamed to quote a bad author if what he says is good.
- Seneca the Younger, On Tranquility of Mind
- The best ideas are common property.
- Seneca the Younger, "On Old Age", Moral Letters to Lucilius
- They had been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.
- William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost (c. 1595-6), Act V, scene 1, line 39.
- The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act I, scene 3, line 99.
- It's better to be quotable than to be honest.
- Tom Stoppard, The Guardian 1973
- 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.
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan (2007), p. xxvii, footnote
- I like quoting Einstein. Know why? Because nobody dares contradict you.
- Studs Terkel, as quoted by Oliver Burkeman, "Voice of America", The Guardian, 1 March 2002
- A witty saying proves nothing.
- Voltaire Le dîner du comte de Boulainvilliers (1767): Deuxième Entretien
- Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
- Oscar Wilde, De Profundis (1905)
- To patchwork learn'd quotations are allied,
Both strive to make our poverty our pride.
- Edward Young, Love of Fame (1725-28), Satire I.
- Some, for renown, on scraps of learning dote,
And think they grow immortal as they quote.
- Edward Young, Love of Fame (1725-28), Satire I, line 89.
Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
- Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 653-54.
- There is not less wit nor invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought. Cardinal du Perron has been heard to say that the happy application of a verse of Virgil has deserved a talent.
- Pierre Bayle, Works, Volume II, p. 779.
- One whom it is easier to hate, but still easier to quote—Alexander Pope.
- Augustine Birrell, Alexander Pope.
- The greater part of our writers. * * * have become so original, that no one cares to imitate them: and those who never quote in return are seldom quoted.
- Isaac D'Israeli, Curiosities of Literature, Quotation.
- The art of quotation requires more delicacy in the practice than those conceive who can see nothing more in a quotation than an extract.
- Isaac D'Israeli, Curiosities of Literature, Quotation.
- One may quote till one compiles.
- Isaac D'Israeli, Curiosities of Literature, Quotation.
- The wisdom of the wise and the experience of ages may be preserved by QUOTATION.
- Isaac D'Israeli, Curiosities of Literature, Quotation.
- A book which hath been culled from the flowers of all books.
- George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy (1868), Book II.
- A great man quotes bravely, and will not draw on his invention when his memory serves him with a word as good.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims (1876), Quotation and Originality.
- By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we quote. We quote not only books and proverbs, but arts, sciences, religion, customs, and laws; nay, we quote temples and houses, tables and chairs by imitation.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims (1876), Quotation and Originality.
- Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims (1876), Quotation and Originality.
- We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he selects as by what he originates.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims (1876), Quotation and Originality.
- Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.
- Samuel Johnson, Preface to Dictionary.
- Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.
- Samuel Johnson, Remark to Wilkes (1781).
- C'est souvent hasarder un bon mot et vouloir le perdre quo de le donner pour sien.
- A good saying often runs the risk of being thrown away when quoted as the speaker's own.
- Jean de La Bruyère, Les Caractères, II.
- 'Twas not an Age ago since most of our Books were nothing but Collections of Latin Quotations; there was not above a line or two of French in a Page.
- Jean de La Bruyère, The Characters or Manners of the Present Age (1688), Chapter XV. Of the Pulpit.
- Though old the thought and oft exprest,
'Tis his at last who says it best.
- James Russell Lowell, For an Autograph, Stanza 1.
- Comme quelqu'un pourroit dire de moy, que j'ay seulement faict icy un amas de fleurs estrangieres, n'y ayant fourny du mien que le filet à les lier.
- As one might say of me that I have only made here a collection of other people's flowers, having provided nothing of my own but the cord to bind them together.
- Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Book III, Chapter XII.
- … I have seen books made of things neither studied nor ever understood … the author contenting himself for his own part, to have cast the plot and projected the design of it, and by his industry to have bound up the fagot of unknown provisions; at least the ink and paper his own. This may be said to be a buying or borrowing, and not a making or compiling of a book.
- Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Book III, Chapter XII.
- Nor suffers Horace more in wrong translations
By wits, than critics in as wrong quotations.
- Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1709), Part III, line 104.
- He ranged his tropes, and preached up patience,
Backed his opinion with quotations.
- Matthew Prior, Paulo Purganti and his Wife, line 143.
- Always to verify your references.
- Rev. Dr. Routh, to Dean Burgon. Nov. 29, 1847. See Very Rev. John Burgon, Lives of Twenty Good Men. "Reference" in ed. of 1891; "quotation" in earlier ed.
- The little honesty existing among authors is to be seen in the outrageous way in which they misquote from the writings of others.
- Arthur Schopenhauer, On Authorship.
- A forward critic often dupes us
With sham quotations peri hupsos,
And if we have not read Longinus,
Will magisterially outshine us.
Then, lest with Greek he over-run ye,
Procure the book for love or money,
Translated from Boileau's translation,
And quote quotation on quotation.
- Jonathan Swift, On Poetry.
- I am but a gatherer and disposer of other men's stuff.
- Sir Henry Wotton, Preface to the Elements of Architecture.
On Misquotation
- Quotation. The act of repeating erroneously the words of another. The words erroneously repeated.
- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
- 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.
- Groucho Marx, interview by Roger Ebert in Esquire magazine, 7 March 1972
- When you see yourself quoted in print and you're sorry you said it, it suddenly becomes a misquotation.
- Laurence J. Peter , Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977), ISBN 0-688-03217-6, p. 418
- 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
- Axiom 1. Any quotation that can be altered will be.
See also
External links
Wikipedia has an article about: Quotation Look up quotation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary
|