100+ Block Quote Examples in MLA Format: Copywriting Guide & Tips

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…” (Dickens 5).

“Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse…” (Melville 1).

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since” (Fitzgerald 4).

“The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it arose” (Ecclesiastes 1:5).

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” (Tolstoy 1).

“I am not what I am,” said Viola, disguising both identity and truth in Shakespeare’s *Twelfth Night* (II.i.26).

“She stood at the window, gazing out at the rain-soaked street, wondering if he would ever return” (Woolf 87).

“He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it” (Fitzgerald 180).

“The world was hers for the reading, and she read it passionately, line by line, word by word” (Lessing 33).

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment” (Emerson 14).

“We lived on a combination of chaos, fear, and hope—and somehow, love held us together” (Morrison 92).

“Language is the dress of thought,” observed Samuel Johnson, shaping how we interpret narrative voice (Johnson 202).

“Cogito, ergo sum: I think, therefore I am,” Descartes asserted, grounding modern philosophy in self-awareness (Descartes 35).

“Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself,” declared Sartre, emphasizing existential responsibility (Sartre 42).

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger,” Nietzsche wrote, challenging perceptions of suffering (Nietzsche 103).

“Virtue is knowledge,” claimed Socrates, linking ethics and understanding (Plato 72b).

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him,” proclaimed Nietzsche, diagnosing cultural decline (Nietzsche 125).

“Freedom is not freedom unless it includes the freedom to make mistakes,” said Solzhenitsyn (Solzhenitsyn 88).

“Happiness depends upon ourselves,” Aristotle reminded us, placing agency in personal cultivation (Aristotle 1100a).

“Existence precedes essence,” Sartre insisted, redefining human identity (Sartre 23).

“An unexamined life is not worth living,” warned Socrates, urging introspection (Plato 38a).

“Morality is the herd instinct in the individual,” Nietzsche critiqued collective ethics (Nietzsche 62).

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit,” explained Aristotle (Aristotle 1104b).

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing,” Socrates confessed, defining humility (Plato 21d).

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty…” (Lincoln 1).

“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds… we shall never surrender,” Churchill vowed (Churchill 3).

“Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country,” Kennedy inspired (Kennedy 1).

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed,” King proclaimed (King 4).

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few,” Churchill praised RAF pilots (Churchill 7).

“Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth,” Lincoln affirmed (Lincoln 2).

“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” Armstrong declared from the lunar surface (Armstrong 1).

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” Roosevelt reassured a trembling nation (Roosevelt 1).

“We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard,” Kennedy challenged (Kennedy 5).

“Let every nation know… that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, support any friend, oppose any foe,” Kennedy pledged (Kennedy 2).

“Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,” Wallace defended injustice (Wallace 1).

“If you want peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies,” Arafat urged (Arafat 6).

“The universe began with a singularity—an infinitely dense point from which space and time emerged” (Hawking 45).

“DNA consists of two strands that wind around each other to form a double helix carrying genetic instructions” (Watson 23).

“Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype” (Darwin 89).

“Energy cannot be created or destroyed—only transformed from one form to another,” stated the first law of thermodynamics (Clausius 12).

“Gravity is not a force pulling objects together, but rather the curvature of spacetime caused by mass,” Einstein theorized (Einstein 77).

“Photosynthesis converts light energy into chemical energy stored in glucose molecules” (Calvin 34).

“Quantum mechanics shows that particles exist in superpositions until measured” (Bohr 56).

“The speed of light in vacuum is constant for all observers, regardless of motion,” foundational to relativity (Einstein 21).

“Viruses replicate by hijacking host cell machinery to produce more viral particles” (Stanley 18).

“Climate change is driven primarily by increased atmospheric CO₂ from fossil fuel combustion” (IPCC 9).

“Neurons communicate via electrical impulses and neurotransmitters across synapses” (Sherrington 41).

“Evolution occurs through mutation, gene flow, genetic drift, and natural selection” (Dobzhansky 63).

“Because I could not stop for Death – / He kindly stopped for me – / The Carriage held but just Ourselves – / And Immortality” (Dickinson 1-4).

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, / And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler, long I stood…” (Frost 1-3).

“Do not go gentle into that good night, / Old age should burn and rave at close of day; / Rage, rage against the dying of the light” (Thomas 1-3).

“I wandered lonely as a cloud / That floats on high o'er vales and hills, / When all at once I saw a crowd…” (Wordsworth 1-3).

“O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done, / The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won…” (Whitman 1-2).

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate…” (Shakespeare 1-2).

“Tyger Tyger, burning bright, / In the forests of the night; / What immortal hand or eye, / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” (Blake 1-4).

“Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds, / Or bends with the remover to remove” (Shakespeare 3-5).

“I arise from dreams of thee / In the first sweet sleep of night, / When the winds are breathing low…” (Shelley 1-3).

“Hope is the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul, / And sings the tune without the words…” (Dickinson 1-3).

“Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you / As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend…” (Donne 1-2).

“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; / Coral is far more red than her lips’ red…” (Shakespeare 1-2).

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures…” (Psalm 23:1–2).

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish…” (John 3:16).

“And Jesus said unto him, ‘Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise’” (Luke 23:43).

“Love thy neighbor as thyself,” commanded Leviticus, summarizing moral duty (Leviticus 19:18).

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you,” Jesus promised (John 14:27).

“Be still, and know that I am God,” the psalmist instructed, calling for trust (Psalm 46:10).

“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them,” Jesus assured (Matthew 18:20).

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God,” Paul wrote (Romans 8:28).

“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding,” advised Proverbs (Proverbs 3:5).

“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God,” declared Matthew (Matthew 5:9).

“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me,” Paul testified (Philippians 4:13).

“And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity,” taught Paul (1 Corinthians 13:13).

“Women are not born, they are made,” argued Simone de Beauvoir, exposing social construction (Beauvoir 267).

“The personal is political,” became a rallying cry for second-wave feminists (Hanisch 2).

“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own,” Lorde reflected (Lorde 112).

“We must learn to reweave the old connections,” urged Starhawk, linking feminism and ecology (Starhawk 89).

“Gender is a construct imposed by society,” Butler proposed, revolutionizing theory (Butler 17).

“There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives,” Lorde reminded (Lorde 138).

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction,” Woolf insisted (Woolf 4).

“Patriarchy profits from the exploitation of women’s labor and bodies,” observed Firestone (Firestone 10).

“Equality is not a concept. It’s not something we should be striving for. It’s a reality we should recognize,” Walker stated (Walker 67).

“Feminism is the radical notion that women are people,” Dworkin declared (Dworkin 33).

“When a woman challenges power, she is labeled difficult,” noted Sandberg (Sandberg 54).

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter,” King echoed, relevant to gender justice (King 7).

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” warned Lord Acton (Acton 2).

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” King consoled (King 5).

“Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried,” Churchill admitted (Churchill 1).

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” Santayana cautioned (Santayana 12).

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” King wrote from Birmingham jail (King 8).

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” Burke allegedly said (Burke 3).

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent,” Freethought attributed (Unknown).

“The rich rule the poor, and the poor tolerate it because they hope to become rich,” observed Chomsky (Chomsky 19).

“Propaganda works best when people believe they are thinking independently,” said Ellul (Ellul 44).

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death,” King warned (King 12).

“The press is free only if it serves the interests of the people. Otherwise, it is propaganda,” said Orwell (Orwell 7).

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars,” Wilde mused (Wilde 2).

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts,” Churchill encouraged (Churchill 9).

“You miss 100% of the shots you don't take,” Gretzky reminded, urging action (Gretzky 1).

“Believe you can and you’re halfway there,” Roosevelt inspired (Roosevelt 3).

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams,” Roosevelt told youth (Roosevelt 7).

“It always seems impossible until it’s done,” Mandela reflected on perseverance (Mandela 5).

“Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going,” Samford advised (Samford 2).

“Opportunities don’t happen. You create them,” Sherman emphasized agency (Sherman 4).

“The harder I work, the luckier I get,” said Gary Player on success (Player 1).

“Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life,” Jobs warned (Jobs 3).

“Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear,” George Addair claimed (Addair 1).

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can,” Arthur Ashe advised (Ashe 2).

“Dream big. Start small. Act now,” Robin Sharma summarized (Sharma 1).

“To be, or not to be, that is the question: / Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune…” (Shakespeare, *Hamlet* III.i.58–60).

“All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women merely players…” (Shakespeare, *As You Like It* II.vii.139–140).

“I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody,” lamented Terry Malloy (Budd Schulberg, *On the Waterfront*).

“Here’s looking at you, kid,” Rick toasted, sealing cinematic romance (Epstein, *Casablanca*).

“Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Martha challenged, unraveling illusion (Albee, *Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?*).

“I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse,” Vito Corleone promised, defining power (Puzo, *The Godfather*).

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans,” narrated Alan Weiss (Allen, *American Pie*).

“You can’t handle the truth!” Colonel Jessup roared (Sorkin, *A Few Good Men*).

“Why so serious?” the Joker whispered, destabilizing order (Nolan, *The Dark Knight*).

“I’ll be back,” the Terminator coldly announced (Cameron, *The Terminator*).

“There’s no crying in baseball!” Jimmy shouted, breaking gender norms (Castle, *A League of Their Own*).

“After all, tomorrow is another day!” Scarlett vowed, ending *Gone with the Wind* (Mitchell, *GWTW*).