Quotes About Expression

I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I'm not afraid of falling into my inkpot.

There is no one who does not exaggerate. In conversation, men are encumbered with personality, and talk too much.

I wish to write such rhymes as shall not suggest a restraint, but contrariwise the wildest freedom.

Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.

We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he selects as by what he originates.

It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.

Pictures must not be too picturesque.

Do your thing & I shall know you.

Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know.

An eye can threaten like a loaded and levelled gun, or it can insult like hissing or kicking; or, in its altered mood, by beams of kindness, it can make the heart dance for joy.... One of the most wonderful things in nature is a glance of the eye; it transcends speech; it is the bodily symbol of identity.

If utterance is denied, the thought lies like a burden on the man. Always the seer is a sayer.

The mind will quote whether the tongue does or not.

Speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon-balls and to-tomorrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.

Whatever we think and say is wonderfully better for our spirits and trust in another mouth.

It is the fault of our rhetoric that we cannot strongly state one fact without seeming to belie some other.

A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree or draw a child by studying the outlines of its form merely . . . but by watching for a time his motions and plays, the painter enters into his nature and can then draw him at every attitude . . .

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.

Condense some daily experience into a glowing symbol, and an audience is electrified.

Do not say things. What you are stands over you the while and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.

My evening visitors, if they cannot see the clock, should find the time in my face.

Sooner of later that which is now life shall be poetry, and every fair and manly trait shall add a richer strain to the song.

Speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon-balls and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.

The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression.

The next thing to saying a good thing yourself, is to quote one.