Easy on the Quotes

view but I am just happy they help bump a good thread for others to see. Sometimes the article is so good it doesn't need further discussion it says it all. If there is nothing else to add why write something? Many times people don't have time to respond because they are doing other things, coming or going etc. I find plenty of discussion on some threads in fact people complain about the arguing, it's a no win situation I guess.

"Those who quote others in defense of their views are merely arguing from authority. Though they may sometimes be correct in their beliefs, they are still mindless sheep, for they lack the faculties of rational thinking common in higher man to articulate their own defense." -Jeff White

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"Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it." -- Joseph Goebbels

Quoting from the early Patriots is a good thing--so long as the proper citation is given. Just giving a quote and then the name of this or that early Founder isn't enough; we need to know where the quote is from.

If it's from a letter, how about the date and to whom it was sent? If from the Federal Convention gives us the date (and maybe even a link?) If it's from one of the State Ratifying Conventions, at least indicate which State (and which day if applicable.) If it's from the Federalist Papers, which essay? If it's from one of the Anti-Federalists (erroneously so-called), which pamphlet or circular?

If the citation is unknown, then I would follow zenpiper's advice. If it is known and can be provided, quote away!

"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."
I think it was quoted by an I.R.A. chick.
(Just exercising my first amendment rights).

"A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought."
- Dorothy L. Sayers

WIN

that automatically pop up and have nothing to do with the thread get in the way of reading. You constantly read the same quote over and over and over and I personally would not do it. It bugs me.

Then when someone wants to just bump a thread, their quotes naturally come up and that is why you have some with the quote only--they are just bumping the thread.

They were kind of neat in the beginning, when the whole thing was new, but after about a month, they became annoying. You never know whether the quote is something you need to read or that you have read 100 times already until you get into it and then stop in the middle.

Who died and put you in charge ?

it's too dark to read.” —Groucho Marx

From time to time I think what Jefferson thought and rather than be redundant I will refer to his or any other quote I consider to be true.

If I know anything I will tell you what I know. If I think something I will tell you what I think and not necessarily what I think I know.

Christopher Buckley:
Reading any collection of a man's quotations is like eating the ingredients that go into a stew instead of cooking them together in the pot. You eat all the carrots, then all the potatoes, then the meat. You won't go away hungry, but it's not quite satisfying. Only a biography, or autobiography, gives you the hot meal.

George Bernard Shaw:
I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.

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

Groucho Marx:
Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted.

Isaac D'Israeli:
The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotations.

Joseph Roux:
A fine quotation is a diamond on the finger of a man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool.

Lama Surya Das:
Our lack of compassion stems from our inability to see deeply into the nature of things.

Louise Guiney:
Quotations (such as have point and lack triteness) from the great old authors are an act of reverence on the part of the quoter, and a blessing to a public grown superficial and external.

Marlene Dietrich:
I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognizably wiser than oneself.

Marlene Dietrich:
I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.

Mary Pettibone Poole:
The next best thing to being clever is being able to quote someone who is.

Michel de Montaigne:
I quote others only in order the better to express myself.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:
Stay at home in your mind. Don't recite other people's opinions. I hate quotations. Tell me what you know. Journals, 1843

Ralph Waldo Emerson:
By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:
Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:
The next thing to saying a good thing yourself, is to quote one.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:
I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:
All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands.

Robert Burns:
I pick my favourite quotations and store them in my mind as ready armour, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence.

Sophocles:
A short saying often contains much wisdom.

Talmud:
A quotation at the right moment is like bread to the famished.

Virginia Woolf:
When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet. . . indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.

Voltaire:
A witty saying proves nothing.

W. Somerset Maugham:
She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.

W. Somerset Maugham:
The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.

Winston Churchill:
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.

Yossi Klein Halevi:
But theological change happens though selective quoting. Every religious person does it: You quote those verses that resonate with your own religious insights and ignore or reinterpret those that undermine your certainties. Selective quoting isn't just legitimate, but essential: Religions evolve through shifts in selective quoting.

I think it's okay to post a quote with your comment, but to post a quote by itself as a response is silly. Someday we will be a part of history and maybe someone will quote us; unless of course we have only quoted someone else.