Maria Edgeworth grumbled against vandals who ruined immortal works by quoting the life out of them. "How far our literature may in future suffer from these blighting swarms, will best be conceived by a glance at what they have already withered and blasted of the favourite productions of our most popular poets." Shakespeare, Milton, and Dryden, scissored, patched, and frayed.
Great quotation collections glean the millennia, distill essences, and battle for bragging rights about who’s bigger, who’s smarter, who’s best. Who-knows-who-said-what has a market, a history, and a hall of fame.
Quotology disdains no quotations whatsoever, a duty it bears stoutly, with bloodshot eyes and sagging shelves.
Excellent flatterers welcome attentive audiences; mighty potentates enjoy public praise. In the most pleasing situation, a flatterer would genuinely admire the flatteree, please that person, please other present company, be pleased to stagger rivals, and get something out of it: applause, promotion, a favor, reciprocal praise. Flattery is as social as a banquet.
At its best, flattery is truth well dressed, and it is best dressed with fine see-through fabrics. Honest flattery can caress a lover, cover up a gaffe, and muffle aggression.
Cunning authors cut to be quoted.
Quotations calcify into clichés.
Misquotation is quotology’s swamp. Amateur quoters mix and mangle Shakespeare and Scripture. Professors gaffe and printers bungle. It’s a mess we must wade into.
[D]ifferent people have different quotational gravity.
Flattery works like a drug.
If you flatter yourself properly you will be better able to enjoy yourself. Stretch your joy so that others enjoy you too.
In phrases as brief as a breath worldly wisdom concentrates.
Quotologists encounter happy surprises, bright books by faded authors, treasures hidden under dust.
Flattery.... gets its kicks by flirting with insult and ridicule.
Care for yourself enough to listen carefully to what you say to yourself.
A little flattery, like a warm bath and soft towel, will let you get along with yourself, lie down with yourself, and sleep.
Quotation lovers love rare words.
Quotations cause all kinds of trouble.
Ralph Keyes calls quotation collectors "quotographers," the men and women who gather catchwords, watchwords, war words, winged words, maxims, mottos, sayings, and quips into books of a thousand pages. Through the centuries quotation collectors have saved quotations that would otherwise be lost.
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.
Like pollen on a honeybee, flattery clings to the things you tell yourself.
Flatter yourself critically.
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