I have collected quotations since I can remember. I have them in wonderful books, some with specific quotes (women, writers, women writers, etc.) and many I collected over the years. I would jot things down that I read. I'd then type sheets of these quotations. Now, of course, I corrall them onto my Mac, and from there, I put many of them here on my website.
I am always interested in lesser known quotations from famous sources, as well as quotations that people always get wrong. The second usually occurs when people think something they think is from the Bible is actually Shakespeare or Alexander Pope, or that Abraham Lincoln said things he did not say, or that things Ralph Waldo Emerson did write or say were written or said by Anonymous.
Below are some quotations for you to use to express yourself creatively today. Feel free to use only parts and to interpret however you like in your own piece. You are also invited to check out the hundreds of quotations I have assembled on this site.
You can respond to one of the quotations, use its imagery for a piece of visual art, or incorporate its idea into your writing. Always remember to cite the source!
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.--William Shakespeare
There is no death, only a change of worlds.--Chief Seattle
Once people are not here physically, the spiritual remains. We still connect, we can communicate, we can give and receive love and forgiveness. There is love after someone dies.--Sandra Cisneros
Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.--Ralph Waldo Emerson
What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.--Crowfoot
You never find yourself until you face the truth.--Pearl Bailey
The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely, they will be, by the better angels of our nature.--Abraham Lincoln
If they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.--Shirley Chisholm
Any religion which will sacrifice a certain set of human beings for the enjoyment or aggrandizement or advantage of another is no religion. It is a thing which may be allowed, but it is against true religion. Any religion which sacrifices women to the brutality of men is no religion.--Julia Ward Howe
Stop letting Grey's Anatomy' fool you into doing pre-med.--Bowen Yang
Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.--Lao Tzu
Fear is a noose that binds until it strangles.--Jean Toomer
I got well by talking. Death could not get a word in edgewise, grew discouraged, and traveled on.--Louise Erdrich
People were asleep, but I think they're waking up now.--Dolores Huerta
Most people are other people.--Oscar Wilde
Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.--James Baldwin
Teach me to feel another's woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me.--Alexander Pope
To fly we have to have resistance.--Maya Lin
Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering.--Henry Ward Beecher
I ask the impossible: love me forever.--Ana Castillo
The one who gets wisdom loves life; the one who cherishes understanding will soon prosper.--Proverbs 19:8
even my dreams have dreams--Wanda Coleman
To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.--Jorge Luis Borges
Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.--Henry Van Dyke
In the same way, the people whom I most abhor, I abhor them for elements that I abhor in myself.--Shirley Geok-lin Lim
This is our home and this is our country. Beneath its soil lie bones of our fathers; for it some of them fought, bled, and died. Here we were born and here we will stay.--Paul Robeson
I realized that color was a way of making an image more alive. Besides, I always choose to show a positive and joyful side of the world. Colors are crucial tools in doing so.--Christine Sioui-Wawanoloath
Nature made a mistake, which I have corrected.--Christine Jorgensen
They came with a Bible and their religion. They stole our land and crushed our spirit, and now tell us we should be thankful to the Lord for being saved.--Chief Pontiac
Do not be bound by this age; aim to create a new age that will delight people throughout the world.--Masayoshi Son
The obsession with food filled my childhood - that's what happens when your parents are from a place or time where people really might starve.--Diana Abu-Jaber
Learn this from water: loud splashes the brook but the oceans depth are calm.--Buddha
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