Top 22 Quotes & Sayings by Willis Regier

In phrases as brief as a breath worldly wisdom concentrates.

Flattery works like a drug.

Ralph Keyes calls quotation collectors "quotographers," the men and women who gather catchwords, watchwords, war words, winged words, maxims, mottos, sayings, and quips into books of a thousand pages. Through the centuries quotation collectors have saved quotations that would otherwise be lost.

A little flattery, like a warm bath and soft towel, will let you get along with yourself, lie down with yourself, and sleep.

At its best, flattery is truth well dressed, and it is best dressed with fine see-through fabrics. Honest flattery can caress a lover, cover up a gaffe, and muffle aggression.

Excellent flatterers welcome attentive audiences; mighty potentates enjoy public praise. In the most pleasing situation, a flatterer would genuinely admire the flatteree, please that person, please other present company, be pleased to stagger rivals, and get something out of it: applause, promotion, a favor, reciprocal praise. Flattery is as social as a banquet.

Misquotation is quotology’s swamp. Amateur quoters mix and mangle Shakespeare and Scripture. Professors gaffe and printers bungle. It’s a mess we must wade into.

[D]ifferent people have different quotational gravity.

Quotology disdains no quotations whatsoever, a duty it bears stoutly, with bloodshot eyes and sagging shelves.

Flattery.... gets its kicks by flirting with insult and ridicule.

Great quotation collections glean the millennia, distill essences, and battle for bragging rights about who’s bigger, who’s smarter, who’s best. Who-knows-who-said-what has a market, a history, and a hall of fame.

Say what you want without saying it yourself: quote. Very useful, this, sometimes lovely, and versatile, too: big thoughts in small pieces, neatly wrapped and bundled in bulk, in different flavors for different tastes.

Quotations calcify into clichés.

Care for yourself enough to listen carefully to what you say to yourself.

Quotation lovers love rare words.

Maria Edgeworth grumbled against vandals who ruined immortal works by quoting the life out of them. "How far our literature may in future suffer from these blighting swarms, will best be conceived by a glance at what they have already withered and blasted of the favourite productions of our most popular poets." Shakespeare, Milton, and Dryden, scissored, patched, and frayed.

Cunning authors cut to be quoted.

If you flatter yourself properly you will be better able to enjoy yourself. Stretch your joy so that others enjoy you too.

Quotologists encounter happy surprises, bright books by faded authors, treasures hidden under dust.

Flatter yourself critically.

Quotations cause all kinds of trouble.

Like pollen on a honeybee, flattery clings to the things you tell yourself.