A Tattoo on the Tongue

And here we have another bunch of quotations, which I semi-compulsively collect from here and there across the vast wasteland of the internet. Several are from the wonderful newsletter A Word a Day; many are not.

The title of this post, as you will discern momentarily, comes from the first quotation in the current batch, which struck my fancy.

“A quote is just a tattoo on the tongue.” —Attributed to William F. DeVault

“Writing is torture. Not writing is torture. The only thing that feels good is having written.” —C. B. Mosher

“Not far from the invention of fire must rank the invention of doubt.” —Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist (1825-1895)

“The hardest part is starting to write.” —Michael Crichton (1942–2008)

“To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.” —Mark Twain (1835-1910)

“No writer is really part of a group sensibility. When you’re writing, you’re on your own.” —A. S. Byatt

“It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.” —Confucius

“Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity.” —William Zinsser

“The real index of civilization is when people are kinder than they need to be.” —Louis de Berniere, novelist (b. 1954)

“The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.” —Mark Twain

“Faith is the unflagging determination to remain ignorant in the face of any and all evidence that you’re ignorant.” —Shaun Mason

“Habit with him was all the test of truth / It must be right: I’ve done it from my youth.” —George Crabbe, poet and naturalist (1754-1832)

“They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.” —Benjamin Franklin

“An army of sheep led by a lion would defeat an army of lions led by a sheep.” —Arab Proverb

“An interesting thing about writing is that you might write quite a lot before you realize what you’re doing.” —Alexander McCall-Smith

“God shouldn’t be put in charge of everything until we get to know Him a little better.” —Kurt Vonnegut

“Patriot: The person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.” —Mark Twain

“The term ‘family reunion’ kind of implies you normally don’t have to keep in touch with these people, right?” —Jim Gaffigan

“To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up.” —Oscar Wilde

“And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence.” —Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)

“Man: A creature made at the end of the week’s work when God was tired.” —Mark Twain