"Some great writers produce a profound effect by their work as a whole, but are not readily quotable; others have the gift of condensing their meaning into a striking phrase. The conscious and deliberate literary artist will generally be found to belong to the latter class. Pope, for example, is the most quotable writer in English after Shakespeare. Stevenson stands intermediate. On the whole, he rather diffuses his meaning, and makes it an atmosphere enfolding everything; but at times his skill in words concentrates itself in a sentence or phrase, or even in a word."

"It's better to be quotable than to be honest."

"Whoever only reads in order to transcribe wise and shining Remarks, without entering into the Genius and Spirit of the Author, as it is probable that he will make no very judicious Extract, so he will be apt to trust to that Collection in all his Compositions, and be misled out of the regular Way of thinking, in order to introduce those Materials which he has been at the Pains to gather: And the Product of all this will be found a manifest and incoherent Piece of Patchwork."

"Fine phrases I value more than bank-notes. I have ear for no other harmony than the harmony of words. To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for."

"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."

"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."

"The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose."

"The little honesty existing among authors is to be seen in the outrageous way in which they misquote from the writings of others."

"I shall never be ashamed to quote a bad author if what he says is good."

"A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought."

"The best ideas are common property."

"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."

"Whatever is well said by anyone is mine."

"I always have a quotation for everything—it saves original thinking."

"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."

"An analogous 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)."

"Those quotations were really quite obscure. Anyone can see that he is a very well-read man."

"It seems simple: a quotation is a repetition of a saying : But leading language philosophers — Frege, Tarski, Geach, Quine, Searle — recognized that quotations are trouble. Donald Davidson was taught that quotation is “a somewhat shady device” and an “invitation to sin.”"

"He ranged his tropes, and preached up patience, Backed his opinion with quotations."

"Always to verify your references."

"I ask for your indulgence when I march out quotations. This is the double syndrome of men who write for a living and men who are over forty. The young smoke pot — we inhale from our Bartlett's."

"Quotes are just fancy ways of stating the obvious"

"When you see yourself quoted in print and you're sorry you said it, it suddenly becomes a misquotation."

"The poem, although widely differing in subject from any of Mrs. Lewis' prior compositions, and far superior to any of them in general vigor, artistic skill, and assured certainty of purpose, is nevertheless easily recognizable as the production of the same mind which originated "Florence" and "The Forsaken." We perceive, throughout, the same passion, the same enthusiasm, and the same seemingly reckless abandon of thought and manner which we have already mentioned as characterizing the writer. We should have spoken also, of a fastidious yet most sensitive and almost voluptuous sense of Beauty. These are the general traits of "The Child of the Sea:" but undoubtedly the chief value of the poem, to ordinary readers, will be found to lie in the aggregation of its imaginative passages—its quotable points."

"Misquotation is, in fact, the pride and privilege of the learned. A widely-read man never quotes accurately, for the rather obvious reason that he has read too widely."

"Stop quoting laws, we carry weapons!"

"The undigested is quoted, the assimilated is not."

"All those who listen to me shall pass on my words to others and those to others again; and may the last ones understand my words better than those who listen to me directly."

"The next best thing to being clever is being able to quote someone who is."

"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."

"… 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."

"Quando mi viene in mente un bell'aforisma, lo metto in conto a Montesquieu, od a La Rochefoucauld. Non si sono mai lamentati."

"Je ne dis les autres, sinon pour d'autant plus me dire."

"I've always felt that if a thing had been said in the best way, how can you say it better? … If you are charmed by an author, I think it's a very strange and invalid imagination that doesn't long to share it. Somebody else should read it."

"We are what we have deitalicized."

"Nor suffers Horace more in wrong translations By wits, than critics in as wrong quotations."

"They had been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps."

"The French public seem to estimate the master pieces of their favorite tragic poets chiefly by the number of fine quotable passages they supply; while their critics estimate their worth by their conformity with certain purely artificial rules."

"It is a sure sign of troubled minds, the habit of quotation."

"Though old the thought and oft exprest, 'Tis his at last who says it best."

"What lunkhead said, "there's no such thing as a free lunch"? According to the Columbia World of Quotations, no one is exactly sure."

"'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."

"An apt quotation is like a lamp which flings its light over the whole sentence."

"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."

"He that has but ever so little examined the citations of writers, cannot doubt how little credit the quotations deserve when the originals are wanting ; and consequently how much less quotations of quotations can be relied on."

":: Corollary 2F: In a pinch, any orphan quote can be called a Chinese proverb."