Quotes about quotations
49 quotes from 37 people
Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.
W. Somerset Maugham1874–1965“1896”, p. 17She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit…
W. Somerset Maugham1874–1965“The Creative Impulse”, in Six Stories Written in the First Person Singular (1931)I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.
Michel de Montaigne1533–1592Essais (wr. 1571–92; pub. 1580–95), Book I, Ch. 26. On the Education of Children
Friedrich Nietzsche1844–1900Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883), Part I, Chapter 7
Dorothy Parker1893–1967“The Little Hours” in Here Lies (1939)
Laurence J. Peter1919–1990Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977), p. 418A fine quotation is a diamond on the finger of a man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool.
Joseph Roux1834–1905Meditations of a Parish Priest (1866), Part 1, LXXIV
J. D. Salinger1919–2010Seymour: An Introduction (1959)A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought.
Dorothy L. Sayers1893–1957Often credited to Peter Wimsey
Seneca the Younger5 BC–AD 65Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XII: On old age, Line 11.
Rod Serling1924–1975Speech at Moorpark College, Moorpark, California (December 3, 1968).
Tom Stoppard1937–2025Interview with Janet Watts in The Guardian (21 March 1973)
