The best effect of any book, is that it excites the reader to self-activity.
(Thomas Carlyle)

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
(Noam Chomsky)

The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.
(Giambattista Vico)

We should have a great fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves. 
(John Locke)

Language forces us to perceive the world as man presents it to us.
(Julia Penelope)

One man's frankness is another man's vulgarity.
(Kevin Smith)

A fine quotation is a diamond in the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand of a fool.
(Joseph Roux)

Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
(George Santayana)

I always have a quotation for everything- it saves original thinking.
(Dorothy Sayers)

To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I hope for.
(Alexander Smith)

Famous remarks are very seldom quoted correctly.
(Simeon Strunsky)

A quotation at the right moment is like bread to the famished.
(The Talmud)

There is nothing new except what has been forgotten.
(Marie Antoinette)

All generalizations are bad. 
(R.H. Grenier)

The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express.
(Alexis De Tocqueville)

It's better to keep your mouth shut and give the impression that you're stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.
(Rami Belson)

Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum ­ I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.
(Ambrose Bierce)

I'm going to speak my mind because I have nothing to lose.
(S.I. Hayakawa)

Ten persons who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.
(Napoleon I)

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)

Openmindedness should not be fostered because, as Scripture teaches, Truth is great and will prevail, nor because, as Milton suggests, Truth will always win in a free and open encounter. It should be fostered for its own sake.
(Walter Bagehot)

Quote me as saying I was misquoted.  
(Groucho Marx)

I have nothing to declare except my genius.  
(Oscar Wilde)

I was a total loner, not by self-design. I just didn't know what the hell to say to people. I was so shy. I used to stammer and lisp and dribble at the mouth.  
(Sir Anthony Hopkins, on his youth)

The greatest gift you can give another is the purity of your attention.  
(Richard Moss)

Porno is the unconsciousness of culture, the libido of humanity.  
(Merzbow)

The monster a child knows best and is most concerned with [is] the monster he feels or fears himself to be.   
(Bruno Bettelheim, Child Psychologist)

I start drawing, and eventually the characters involve themselves in a situation. Then in the end, I go back and try to cut out most of the preachments.  
(Theodor Seuss Geisel)

There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true.
(Winston Churchill)

A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of.
(Burt Bacharach)