The most obvious attraction of quotation is that it gives you a little vacation from writing—the other person is doing the work. All you have to do is type. But there is a reason beyond sloth for my liking of quotation at length. It permits you to show the thing itself rather than the pale, and never quite right, simulacrum that paraphrase is.
— Janet Malcolm
Guess who messed up her BEDA schedule already?
No matter, as the above suggests, this post will allow some quotable authors do the hard work for me.
Without further ado, here are some of my favourite clever and inspiring quotations.
Wit & Wisdom
Enjoy what you can, and endure what you must.
— Goethe
Good friends, good books & a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
— Mark Twain
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
— Voltaire
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.
— Oscar Wilde
A day without laughter is a day wasted.
— Charlie Chaplin
It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.
— John Steinbeck
It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.
— Oscar Wilde
Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
Inspiration
If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write something worth reading or do things worth writing.
— Benjamin Franklin
The two most beautiful words in the English language are “Check enclosed.”
— Dorothy Parker
The secret of creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
— Albert Einstein
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.
— Henry Ford
Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
— Carl Sagan
Share your favourite quotes with me in the comments!