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Life is a quotation

• Life itself is a quotation. Jorge Luis Borges
• Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests and mines and stone quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors. Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Collect all the quotations you like into your own bible for living

• Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your reading have been to you like the blast of triumph out of Shakespeare, Seneca, Moses, John and Paul. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• It is in fact one of the charms of this book, that it has gathered its contents from almost every latitude and longitude, and sometimes from the opposite poles of thought. Jew, Pagan, and Christian—classic and patristic—primitive and recent authors—furnish each his quota to the design. Men are here found standing side by side who were wide apart in time, space, and character—agreeing in nothing, except that they thought on the same subject, and thought well. James Elmes
• Anatole France frankly advised, “When a thing has been said and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.” Yes, indeed, but do more. Copy many well-said things. Pierce them together. Assimilate them. Make the process of reading them a way to form the mind and shape the soul. As anthologies can never be complete, we will never exhaust the ways quotations can enrich our lives. Gary Saul Morson
• Quotations will tell the full measure of meaning, if you have enough of them. James Murray
• A book of quotations can never be complete. Robert M. Hamilton
• To select well among old things is almost equal to inventing new ones. Nicolas Charles Joseph Trublet
• 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

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When you read, extract quotes that resonate for future reference

• He picked something out of everything he read. Pliny
• Most of the noted literary men have indulged in the prudent habit of selecting favorite passages for future reference. Charles F. Schutz
• So our student will flit like a busy bee through the entire garden of literature, light on every blossom, collect a little nectar from each, and carry it to his hive. Desiderius Erasmus
• I keep a quotes journal – of every sentence that I’ve wanted to remember from my reading of the past 30 years. Richard Powers

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Don’t hesitate to borrow the words of others

• The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don’t like their rules, whose would you use? Dale Carnegie
• Nor must you find fault with me if I often give you what I have borrowed from my various reading, in the very words of the authors themselves. Macrobius
• Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted, than when we read it in the original author? Philip Gilbert Hamerton
• People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first. David H Comins
• When a thing has been said and well said, have no scruple: take it and copy it. Anatole France
• An apt quotation is as good as an original remark. Proverb
• Say what you want without saying it yourself: quote. Very useful, this, sometimes lovely, and versatile, too: big thoughts in small pieces, neatly wrapped and bundled in bulk, in different flavors for different tastes. Willis Goth Regier
• In these circumstances I think we must take the bull by the horns and, making due allowances, quote whenever we feel that the allusion is interesting or helpful or amusing. Clifton Fadiman
• Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• A good saying often runs the risk of being thrown away when quoted as the speaker’s own. Jean de La Bruyère
• Words

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Reflect and meditate on the quotations you read

• The only way to read a book of aphorisms without being bored is to open it at random and, having found something that interests you, close the book and meditate. Prince Charles-Joseph
• Besides, it happens (how, I cannot tell) that an idea launched like a javelin in proverbial form strikes with sharper point on the hearer’s mind and leaves implanted barbs for meditation. Desiderius Erasmus
• Reflection,  Meditation,  Reading

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Quotations are one of the great joys in life

• I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself. Marlene Dietrich
• It’s such a pleasure to write down splendid words—almost as though one were inventing them. Rupert Hart- Davis
• I’m discovering that everybody is a closet quotesmith. Just give them a chance. Robert Brault
• It is a pleasure to be able to quote lines to fit any occasion. Abraham Lincoln
• When I hear or read a good line I can hardly wait to tell it to somebody else. Robert Byrne
• A picture, it is said, is worth a thousand words, but cannot a few well-spoken words convey as many pictures?
• A beautiful verse, an apt remark, or a well-turned phrase, appropriately quoted, is always effective and charming. Marie Anne de Vichy-Chamrond du Deffand
• How many of us have been first attracted to reason, first learned to think, to draw conclusions, to extract a moral from the follies of life, by some dazzling aphorism from Rochefoucauld or La Bruyere. Edward Lytton Bulwer
• Quotation brings to many one of the intensest joys of living. Bernard Darwin
• By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Quotations help us remember the simple yet profound truths that give life perspective and meaning. Criswell Freeman
• Life’s simple joys

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A proper collection of quotations passes the wisdom of the tribe onto posterity

• Quotations are the wisdom of the past condensed for the instruction and guidance of the present. Tryon Edwards
• Collections of quotations are an elemental model of how culture is perpetuated, the wisdom of the tribe passed on to posterity, to be added to, edited, and modified by subsequent generations. Robert Andrews
• A proper collection of quotations is the whole world digested. Terri Guillemets
• Most collectors collect tangibles. As a quotation collector, I collect wisdom, life, invisible beauty, souls alive in ink. Terri Guillemets
• The teachings of elegant sayings should be collected when one can. For the supreme gift of words of wisdom, any price will be paid.  Nāgārjuna
• Collect as precious pearls the words of the wise and virtuous. El Amir Abdelkader
• Collections of quotations are not only of importance to the reader for what they contain of matured thought, but also for what they suggest. Our brains receive the spark and become luminous, like inflammable material by the contact of flint and steel. Maturin M. Ballou
• The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations. Isaac Disraeli
• Wisdom

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Quotations provide excellent guidance for living

• Quotations embody the concentrated experience of the race, and the man who orders his life according to their teaching cannot go far wrong. Norman Douglas
• There is hardly a mistake which in the course of our lives we have committed, but some proverb, had we known and attended to its lesson, might have saved us from it. Richard Chenevix Trench
• Quotations help us remember the simple yet profound truths that give life perspective and meaning. When it comes to life’s most important lessons, we can all use gentle reminders. Chriswell Freeman
• Wise sayings are the light-towers along the journey of life. Charles F. Schutz
• Somewhere in this world there is an epigram for every dilemma. Hendrik Willem van Loon
• Maxims are texts to which we turn in danger or sorrow, and we often find what seems to have been expressly written for our use. George Eliot
• Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones at hand do more toward a happy life than whole volumes that we know not where to find. Seneca
• Proverbs generalize the verdicts of the world. Terri Guillemets

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Quotations are a source of great treasure and wisdom

• I swim across a sea of quotes, splashing in the words and riding the waves of wisdom. Terri Guillemets
• In phrases as brief as a breath worldly wisdom concentrates. Willis Goth Regier
• Most collectors collect tangibles. As a quotation collector, I collect wisdom, life, invisible beauty, souls alive in ink. Terri Guillemets
• The obscurest sayings of the truly great are often those which contain the germ of the profoundest and most useful truths. Genius rapidly traverses the living present to bury itself in the deepest mysteries of the universe; often making the grandest discoveries at a single glance. Joseph Mazzini
• Quotologists encounter happy surprises, bright books by faded authors, treasures hidden under dust. Willis Goth Regier
• Good sayings are like pearls strung together. Chinese Proverb
• The words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels. Hazrat Inayat Khan
• All of us encounter, at least once in our life, some individual who utters words that make us think forever. There are men whose phrases are oracles; who can condense in one sentence the secrets of life; who blurt out an aphorism that forms a character, or illustrates an existence. Benjamin Disraeli
• A vast meaning is unfolded in each line, with such power that a sentence only a line long would suffice for a whole life’s training. Rufinus
• The short sayings of the wise and good men are of great value, like the dust of gold, or the sparks of diamonds. Tillotson
• Many useful and valuable books lie buried in shops and libraries, unknown and unexamined, unless some lucky compiler opens them by chance, and finds an easy spoil of wit and learning. Samuel Johnson
• Collect as precious pearls the words of the wise and virtuous. El Amir Abdelkader
• We who are quotatious are never truly alone, but always hear the cheerful flow of remarks made by dead writers so much more intelligent than we. Joseph Epstein
• It is the habit of the mind to condense into diminutive, agreeable and striking forms the results of experience and observation in all the departments of life. As the carbon, disengaged by fire in its multitudinous offices, crystallizes into a diamond that flashes fire from every facet, and bears at every angle the solvent power of the mother flame; so great clouds of truth are evolved by human experience, which are crystallized at last into proverbs, that flash with the lights of history and illuminate the darkness which rests upon the track of the future. Timothy Titcomb
• Centuries have not worm-eaten the solidity of this ancient furniture of the mind. Isaac D’Israeli
• Do not shun this maxim because it is common-place. On the contrary, take the closest heed of what observant men, who would probably like to show originality, are yet constrained to repeat. Therein lies the marrow of the wisdom of the world. Arthur Helps
• The study of proverbs may be more instructive and comprehensive than the most elaborate scheme of philosophy. Maturin M. Ballou
• A proverb is an exploding atom of wisdom. Gaston Kaboré
• Proverbs are potted wisdom. Charles Buxton
• Good quotations, like good thoughts, are true wealth. Annie E. Lancaster
• They are the abridgments of wisdom. Sumner Ellis
• Short isolated sentences were the mode in which ancient Wisdom delighted to convey its precepts, for the regulation of life and manners. William Warburton
• Apothegms are in history, the same as pearls in the sand, or gold in the mine. Desiderius Erasmus

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Quotations are distilled wisdom from long experience…

• There are but few proverbial sayings that are not true, for they are all drawn from experience itself, which is the mother of all sciences. Miguel de Cervantes
• Quotations embody the concentrated experience of the race, and the man who orders his life according to their teaching cannot go far wrong. Norman Douglas
• Short sentences drawn from long experience. Miguel de Cervantes
• Proverbs are the daughters of daily experience. Dutch Proverb
• Quotations are the offspring of experience, instinct with blood and breath and vitality. They are not propositions, conceived in the understanding and addressed to life, but propositions born of life itself, and addressed to the heart. They were not conceived in the minds of the great few, but they sprang from the life of the people.   Timothy Titcomb
• The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotations. Isaac D’Israeli
• Experience

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…although often we need to experience it ourselves for it to have meaning

• Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced—even a Proverb is no proverb to you till your Life has illustrated it. John Keats
• Wisdom is meaningless until your own experience has given it meaning… and there is wisdom in the selection of wisdom. Bergen Evans
• Has any man ever attained to inner harmony by pondering the experience of others? Not since the world began! He must pass through the fire. Norman Douglas
• But proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experienced the truth of them. Aldous Huxley
• One is more apt to become wise by doing fool things than by reading wise sayings. Robert Brault
• Meaning

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Quotations are a great source of inspiration

• Quotations to thinking minds are the seeds from which spring vast fields of new thought, that may be further cultivated, beautified, and enlarged. Ramsay
• Like your body your mind also gets tired so refresh it by wise sayings. Hazrat Ali
• All of us encounter, at least once in our life, some individual who utters words that make us think forever. There are men whose phrases are oracles; who can condense in one sentence the secrets of life; who blurt out an aphorism that forms a character, or illustrates an existence. Benjamin Disraeli
• To such as these we offer, with some confidence, and with no little sympathy, our collection of choice flowers, culled from the gardens of Poesy: may they refresh the mind, and gladden the heart, and beautify the path, of many a careworn toiler in the fields of labour, of whatsoever kind. H.G. Adams
• Inspiring quotes and phrases are like vitamins to the soul. Remez Sasson
• We love quotations; they strengthen us in our own belief; they show that some other spirit, perhaps a master- spirit, has gone thus far with us: to such we cling as the ivy to the oak. J.W
• Books of quotation are not only of importance to the reader for what they contain of matured thought, but also for what they suggest. Our brains receive the spark and become luminous, like inflammable material by the contact of flint and steel. Maturin M. Ballou
• I love quotes because good quotes are vitamins for the brain! Patrick Driessen
• A good quote can sometimes act as a magical spark, setting in motion thoughts, ideas, and feelings that can lead to life- changing revelations. Alex Andrei
• Inspiration

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Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay

• Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay to an author. André- Marie Ampère
• I have heard that nothing gives an author so great pleasure, as to find his works respectfully quoted by other learned authors. Benjamin Franklin
• 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. Alexander Smith
• Oh, to say something so fine, so memorable, that it carries across time, oceans, and languages! Willis Goth Regier
• To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for. Alexander Smith

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An over-reliance on quotations can get in the way of original thought

• A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought. Dorothy L. Sayers
• A quotation is a handy thing to have about, saving one the trouble of thinking for oneself, always a laborious business. A. Milne
• I hate quotations. Tell me what you know. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Beware of thinkers whose minds function only when they are fuelled by a quotation. Emil Cioran
• Sometimes it seems the only accomplishment my education ever bestowed on me, the ability to think in quotations. Margaret Drabble
• The next best thing to being clever is being able to quote someone who is. Mary Pettibone Poole
• I always have a quotation for everything—it saves original thinking. Dorothy L. Sayers
• Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. Oscar Wilde
• Thinking,  Originality

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• Quotation is more universal and more ancient than one would perhaps believe.  James Boswell
• He wrapped himself in quotations—as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.  Rudyard Kipling
• Most of those who make collections of verse or epigram are like men eating cherries or oysters: they choose out the best at first, and end by eating all.  Sébastien-Roch Nicolas
• 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
• Different people have different quotational gravity.  Willis Goth Regier
• An anthology of quotations is a museum of utterances.  Gary Saul Morson
• Stronger than an army is a quotation whose time has come.  I.E. Gates
• We are as much informed of a writer’s genius by what he selects as by what he originates. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Epigrams succeed where epics fail.  Persian Proverb
• The more an idea is developed, the more concise becomes its expression: the more a tree is pruned, the better is the fruit. Alfred Bougeart
• In quoting others, we cite ourselves. Julio Cortázar
• The best ideas are common property. Seneca the Younger
• One may quote till one compiles. Isaac D’Israeli
• A book which hath been culled from the flowers of all books. George Eliot
• Collecting quotations is an insidious, even embarrassing habit, like ragpicking or hoarding rocks or trying on other people’s laundry. I got into it originally while trying to break an addiction to candy. I kicked candy and now seem to be stuck with quotations, which are attacking my brain instead of my teeth. Robert Byrne
• We who are quotatious are never truly alone, but always hear the cheerful flow of remarks made by dead writers so much more intelligent than we. Joseph Epstein

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• A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience. Miguel de Cervantes
• Aphorism, n.: A concise, clever statement you don’t think of until too late. James Alexander Thom
• Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn’t have said.
• Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted. Fred Allen
• I always have a quotation for everything, it saves original thinking. Dorothy L. Sayers
• I like quoting Einstein. Know why? Because nobody dares contradict you. Studs Terkel
• 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
• I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation. George Bernard Shaw
• I think Shakespeare is overrated. After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations. H.L.Mencken, on William Shakespeare
• I’ve compiled a book from the Internet. It’s a book of quotations attributed to the wrong people. Jerry Seinfeld
• If you don’t quote yourself, nobody else will. And you can quote me on that. Scott Ginsberg
• Life is like quotations. Sometimes it makes you laugh. Sometimes it makes you cry. Most of the time, you just don’t get it.
• Misquotations are the only quotations that are never misquoted. Hesketh Pearson
• Now we sit through Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations. Orson Welles
• Nowadays, all a man can do to be original is to cite the earliest known quote on that subject. Women, though, have no problem being original. In fact, women are always being original. I constantly have to tell my wife to stop talking so much nonsense. Benson Bruno
• People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first. David H Comins
• Quotation: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.   Ambrose Bierce
• She had a pretty gift for quotation which is a serviceable substitute for wit. Somerset Maugham
• Starbucks says they are going to start putting religious quotes on cups; the very first one will say ‘Jesus! this cup is expensive!’   Conan O’Brien
• The most valuable quotation will be the one for which you cannot determine the source. Duggan’s Law of Scholarly Research
• The next best thing to being clever is being able to quote someone who is. Mary Pettibone Poole
• The problem with quotes on the internet is you never know if they are genuine. Joseph Stalin
• The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. Robert Benchley
• When in doubt ascribe all quotations to Bernard Shaw. Nigel Rees
• When you see yourself quoted in print and you’re sorry you said it, it suddenly becomes a misquotation. Laurence J. Peter
• You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted then used against you.
• You’ve got to be careful quoting Ronald Reagan because if you quote him accurately it’s called mudslinging. Walter Mondale

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