Quotation Accuracy Quotes

One must be a wise reader to quote wisely and well.

Misquotation is, in fact, the pride and privilege of the learned. A widely- read man never quotes accurately, for the rather obvious reason that he has read too widely.

I'm a great believer in the direct quote in quotation marks and the hard fact.

Misquotations are the only quotations that are never misquoted.

I know people are really interested in everything that the celebrities are doing, even if you don't consider yourself a "celebrity." What always would drive me crazy is - I took ethics classes in college - and it always amazes me how there would blatantly be something that I did not say in quotation marks. If you're putting quotation marks around it, it better be exactly what that person said.

I improve on misquotation.

Quotations--always inexact. I don't trust people who cannot even copy out.

Such do not always understand the authors whose names adorn their barren pages, and which are taken, too, from the third or the thirtieth hand. Those who trust to such false quoters will often learn how contrary this transmission is to the sense and application of the original. Every transplantation has altered the fruit of the tree; every new channel, the quality of the stream in its remove from the spring-head.

I am only too aware that I am open to Rees's Second Law of Quotation: "However sure you are that you have attributed a quotation correctly, an earlier source will be pointed out to you."

I mention this only to shew that the citations of the most judicious authors frequently deceive us, and consequently that prudence obliges us to examine quotations, by whomsoever alleged.