Gore Vidal - Theodosius Dobzhansky - Oscar Wilde - David Tennant - Dorothy Parker - Sophocles - Robert Benchley - Tony Benn - O Douglas - H W & F G Fowler - Ben Jonson - Rudyard Kipling - Edward Young - Hesketh Pearson - Jane Austen - The Office TV - The Ten Year Lunch: The Wit and Legend of the Algonquin Round Table TV -
It is one thing to use text to illustrate a point one is making, but quite another to quote merely to demonstrate the excellence of one’s memory. Gore Vidal, Julian, 1964
Any competent biologist is aware of a multitude of problems yet unresolved and of questions yet unanswered. After all, biologic research shows no sign of approaching completion; quite the opposite is true. Disagreements and clashes of opinion are rife among biologists, as they should be in a living and growing science. Anti-evolutionists mistake, or pretend to mistake, these disagreements as indications of dubiousness of the entire doctrine of evolution. Their favourite sport is stringing together quotations, carefully and sometimes expertly taken out of context, to show that nothing is really established or agreed upon among evolutionists. Some of my colleagues and myself have been amused and amazed to read ourselves quoted in a way showing that we are really anti-evolutionists under the skin. Theodosius Dobzhansky, Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. Oscar Wilde
Every line seems to be a quotation. David Tennant on Hamlet, BBC 2012
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
A short saying oft contains much wisdom. Sophocles
The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. Robert Benchley, 1889-1945, American humorist
A quotation is what a speaker wants to say – unlike a sound-bite which is all that an interviewer allows you to say. Tony Benn, letter to Antony Jay 1966
I know heaps of quotations, so I can always make quite a fair show of knowledge. O Douglas aka Anna Buchan, 1877-1948
Pretentious quotations being the surest road to tedium. H W & F G Fowler, The King’s English, 1906
Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world. Ben Jonson
He swathed himself in quotations – as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of emperors. Rudyard Kipling, Many Inventions, 1893
Some for renown on scraps of learning dote,
And think they grow immortal as they quote. Edward Young, The Love of Fame, 1725-8
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. Hesketh Pearson, Common Misquotations introduction, 1934
She read all such works as heroines must read to supply their memories with those quotations which are so serviceable and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their eventful lives. Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
I like to begin every day with an inspirational quote. The Office US s9e22&23: A A R M, Dwight, NBC 2013
Dorothy Parker became the most quoted woman in New York. The Ten Year Lunch: The Wit and Legend of the Algonquin Round Table, 1987