Quotations

"Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know."

"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."

"Quotation confesses inferiority."

"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."

"We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he selects as by what he originates."

"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."

"Stronger than an army is a quotation whose time has come and which is true."

"People who like quotations love meaningless generalizations."

"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."

"Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language."

"Quotation, Sir, is a good thing; there is a community of mind in it : classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world."

"Just about anyone with intellectual ambition in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was likely to keep a commonplace book. In its most customary form, “commonplacing,” as it was called, involved transcribing interesting or inspirational passages from one’s reading, assembling a personalized encyclopedia of quotations. ... The great minds of the period—Milton, Bacon, Locke—were zealous believers in the memory-enhancing powers of the commonplace book. There is a distinct self-help quality to the early descriptions of commonplacing’s virtues: in the words of one advocate, maintaining the books enabled one to “lay up a fund of knowledge, from which we may at all times select what is useful in the several pursuits of life.”"

"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."

"Truth is not something in the distance; there is no path to it, there is neither your path nor my path; there is no devotional path, there is no path of knowledge or path of action, because truth has no path to it. The moment you have a path to truth, you divide it, because the path is exclusive; and what is exclusive at the very beginning will end in exclusiveness. The man who is following a path can never know truth because he is living in exclusiveness; his means are exclusive, and the means are the end, are not separate from the end. If the means are exclusive, the end is also exclusive. So there is no path to truth, and there are not two truths. Truth is not of the past or the present, it is timeless; the man who quotes the truth of the Buddha, of Shankara, of Christ, or who merely repeats what I am saying, will not find truth, because repetition is not truth. Repetition is a lie."

"I don't like doing interviews. There is always the problem of being misquoted or, what's even worse, of being quoted exactly."

"C'est souvent hasarder un bon mot et vouloir le perdre quo de le donner pour sien."

"'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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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."

"She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit…"

"Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams."

"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."

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

"… 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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."