A Quote by Oliver Goldsmith

Titles and mottoes to books are like escutcheons and dignities in the hands of a king. The wise sometimes condescend to accept of them; but none but a fool would imagine them of any real importance. We ought to depend upon intrinsic merit, and not the slender helps of the title.

Oliver Goldsmith

Quote Topics

Accept Any Books Depend Fool Hands Helps Imagine Importance Intrinsic King Like Merit None Ought Real Slender Sometimes Them Title Titles Wise Would

Quote Author

Oliver Goldsmith
Irish - Novelist
November 10, 1730 - April 4, 1774

Titles are marks of honest men, and wise; The fool or knave that wears a title lies.

Edward Young

I am aware of the technical distinction between ‘less’ and ‘fewer’, and between ‘uninterested’ and ‘disinterested’ and ‘infer’ and ‘imply’, but none of these are of importance to me. ‘None of these are of importance,’ I wrote there, you’ll notice – the old pedantic me would have insisted on “none of them is of importance”. Well I’m glad to say I’ve outgrown that silly approach to language

Stephen Fry

I don’t have any mottoes. If I did I would forever be contradicting them.

Lisa Kleypas

I have people who buy my books just so they can sit them around and show them off because of the titles, especially the Shut Up, Stop Whining and the Grow a Pair. So the title is very, very important.

Larry Winget

I've been very fortunate at having good titles but I just think in terms of titles. I'm doing a workshop now where people write books and they come and I name their books for them. I'm good with titles.

Larry Winget

I want the title. But these hands are working hands, and sometimes you've got to get them dirty.

Dustin Poirier

None of my books are best-sellers. In fact, the only thing that's kept me alive is the books that are in paperback. People find them, they like them, and they pass them on.

James Purdy

Perhaps there is a reason that there is no fool piece on the chessboard. What action, a fool? What strategy, a fool? What use, a fool? Ah, but a fool resides in a deck of cards, a joker, sometimes two. Of no worth, of course. No real purpose. The appearance of a trump, but none of the power: Simply an instrument of chance. Only a dealer may give value to the joker.

Christopher Moore

I jotted down Oslo After Death. This would be a great title for a book, I thought. That is what I do sometimes. I jot down titles for books that I one day intend to write.

John Corey Whaley

I am always glad when any of my books can be put into an inexpensive edition, because I like to think that any people who might wish to read them can do so. Surely books ought to be within reach of everybody.

Pearl S. Buck

in a middle of a room stands a suicide sniffing a Paper rose smiling to a self "somewhere it is Spring and sometimes people are in real:imagine somewhere real flowers,but I can't imagine real flowers for if I could,they would somehow not Be real" (so he smiles smiling)"but I will not everywhere be real to you in a moment" The is blond with small hands "& everything is easier than I had guessed everything would be;even remembering the way who looked at whom first,anyhow dancing

e. e. cummings

Titles are very hard. Sometimes a title comes before I start to write the book, but often I finish the book and I still don't have a title. I have to go through the book again and then sometimes I hope a title jumps out at me from what I've written.

Eve Bunting

It is easy to criticize and find fault with the conduct of kings, and write furious articles against them in newspapers, or make violent speeches about them on platforms. Any fool can rip and rend a costly garment, but not every man can cut out and make one. To expect perfection in kings, prime ministers, or rulers of any king, is senseless and unreasonable. We would exhibit more wisdom if we prayed for them more, and criticized less.