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| Quotation, n.: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another. The words erroneously repeated. ~ Ambrose Bierce, |
| Most anthologists of quotations are like those who eat cherries or oysters: first picking the best ones and winding up by eating everything. ~ Sebastien Roch Nicolas Chamfort, |
| Quotations will tell the full measure of meaning, if you have enough of them. ~ James Murray |
| I am fully conscious of the fact, that aphorisms are like wandering Gypsies. They must always be published without guarantee of the authenticity. ~ Erkki Melartin |
| What is all wisdom save a collection of platitudes? Take fifty of our current proverbial sayings – they are so trite, so threadbare, that we can hardly bring our lips to utter them. Nonetheless they embody the concentrated experience of the race. ~ Norman Douglas |
| It’s such a pleasure to write down splendid words – almost as though one were inventing them. ~ Rupert Hart-Davis |
| I suppose every old scholar has had the experience of reading something in a book which was significant to him, but which he could never find again. Sure he is that he read it there, but no one else ever read it, nor can he find it again, though he buy the book and ransack every page. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson |
| Proverbs were bright shafts in the Greek and Latin quivers. ~ Benjamin Disraeli |
| 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, |
| A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience. ~ Miguel de Cervantes |
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| The art of quotation requires more delicacy in the practice than those conceive who can see nothing more in a quotation than an extract. ~ Benjamin Disraeli |
| All maxims have their antagonist maxims; proverbs should be sold in pairs, a single one being but a half truth. ~ William Mathews |
| It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with confidence, stands a good chance to deceive. ~ Mark Twain, |
| Now we sit through Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations. ~ Orson Welles |
| Always verify your quotations. ~ Martin Joseph Routh |
| A fine quotation is a diamond on the finger of a witty person, but a pebble in the hands of a fool. ~ Author Unknown |
| I hate quotations. Tell me what you know. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, |
| A good aphorism is too hard for the tooth of time, and is not worn away with the centuries, although it serves as food for every speech. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche |
| It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations…. ~ |
| The hunter for aphorisms on human nature has to fish in muddy water, and he is even condemned to find much of his own mind. ~ Francis H. Bradley |
I can only write in ounces
Not novels by the pound
Epigram and aphorism
Mine efficiently profound.
~ Grey Livingston |
| 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 de Ligne |
| A picture, it is said, is worth a thousand words, but cannot a few well-spoken words convey as many pictures? ~ Author Unknown |
| 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 |
| An epigram is only a wisecrack that’s played Carnegie Hall. ~ Oscar Levant |
| People will accept your idea much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first. ~ David H. Comins |
| The great writers of aphorisms read as if they had all known each other well. ~ Elias Canetti |
| Our live experiences, fixed in aphorisms, stiffen into cold epigram. Our heart’s blood, as we write with it, turns to mere dull ink. ~ F.H. Bradley |
| Aphorism, n.: Predigested wisdom. ~ Ambrose Bierce |
| He wrapped himself in quotations – as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors. ~ Rudyard Kipling |