Whether for the annual Inspirational Quotes Contest or finding quotes for a paper or speech ... 

Choose quotes that can be verified. 

To verify a quote, one needs to have not only who said it and where it was found but also when and how to find the original quote.

Most people turn to free Web sources or "quote a day calendars" to find quotes.  Usually these types of sources attribute the quote to an individual, but do not give information on how to check if the quote is correct.  Verifiable quotes have citations to help find the original quote.

Here are two quotes with citations from the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Sixth Edition (2004):

 "Ev'ry corner that you turn you meet a notable

  With a statement that is eminently quotable!"

Ira Gershwin

'Of thee I sing' (title of song and show, 1931)

“It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations."

Winston Churchill

My Early Life (1931) ch. 9

With the citations given, one can locate the lyrics of the Gershwin song or the book and chapter by Winston Churchill and check if the quotes are correct.

Finding and Citing Quotes

One can always take a quote directly from a book, song, speech, interview, etc. and then cite it using MLA, APA, or other citation formats.  If you want quotation sources that are collections of quotes that give good citations and can be searched by author or topic, try one of the selected sources below.

Quotation Books On the MVCC Library Reference Shelves (upstairs):

 
Cassell Dictionary Of Contemporary Quotations / Robert Andrews

Dictionary Of Quotations, / collected And Arranged And With Comments By Bergen Evans

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations : A Collection Of Passages, Phrases, And Proverbs Traced To Their Souces / John Bartlett ; Justin Kaplan, General Editor

Familiar quotations : a collection of passages, phrases, and proverbs traced to their sources in anc Bartlett, John, 1820-1905

The international thesaurus of quotations / compiled by Eugene Ehrlich and Marshall DeBruhl

Magill's quotations in context, edited by Frank N. Magill; associate editor: Tench Francis Tilghman Magill, Frank N. (Frank Northen), 1907-1997

The Oxford dictionary of modern quotations / edited by Elizabeth Knowles

Simpson's contemporary quotations / compiled by James B. Simpson ; foreword by Daniel J. Boorstin

The Macmillan book of proverbs, maxims, and famous phrases Stevenson, Burton Egbert, 1872-1962

The Oxford Dictionary Of English Proverbs

Webster's New World Dictionary Of Quotations

The Home Book Of Quotations, Classical And Modern Stevenson, Burton Egbert, 1872-1962. Cn

The Oxford Dictionary Of American Quotations / selected And Annotated By Hugh Rawson And Margaret Miner

The Yale Book Of Quotations / edited By Fred R. Shapiro ; Foreword By Joseph Epstein

Quotation Books On the MVCC Library Circulating Shelves (downstairs):

Familiar Quotations : A Collection Of Passages, Phrases, And Proverbs Traced To Their Sources In Anc John Bartlett ; Edited By Emily Morison Beck, And The Editorial Staff Of Little, Brown And Company Bartlett, John, 1820-1905, comp

The Oxford Book Of Aphorisms / chosen By John Gross

The Great Quotations / compiled By George Seldes ; With An Introduction By J. Donald Adams

Political quotations : a collection of notable sayings on politics from antiquity through 1989 / Daniel B. Baker, editor

Websites:

Be careful! Most free Websites do not have adequate citations.

The Bartebly site http://www.bartleby.com/quotations/ verifies quotations with citations from the following online books:

Bartlett, John. 1919. Familiar Quotations, 10th ed.
Including over 11,000 quotations, the first new edition of John Bartletts corpus to be published after his death in 1905 keeps most of his original work intact.

 

The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996.
The 65,000 essential quotations by 5,000 authors that constitute this authoritative collection represent the research of 154 experts and are divided into 6,500 subjects.

 

 Simpson's Contemporary Quotations. 1988.
The most notable quotations since 1950, featuring over 9,000 entries from 4,000 sources organized into 25 categories and 60 sections.

 

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
The 2,100 entries in this eminently researched collection form the constellation of collected wisdom in American political debate.