Quotations

"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."

"Stop quoting laws, we carry weapons!"

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

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

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

"Quotes are just fancy ways of stating the obvious"

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

"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)."

"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.”"

"Always to verify your references."

"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."

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

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

"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."

"The best ideas are common property."

"Whatever is well said by anyone is mine."

"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."

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

"The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"I like quoting Einstein. Know why? Because nobody dares contradict you."

"A witty saying proves nothing."

"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."

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."

"I am but a gatherer and disposer of other men's stuff."

"To patchwork learn'd quotations are allied, Both strive to make our poverty our pride."

"Some, for renown, on scraps of learning dote, And think they grow immortal as they quote."