Quote Fatigue
The diminishing return when a famous quote has been repeated past the point of feeling.
Quote fatigue is what happens when a once-fresh line has been repeated so often it produces no response. The line still means what it always meant, but the reader has stopped hearing it.
Most of the most-quoted lines in English are in some stage of fatigue. 'Carpe diem', 'this too shall pass', 'be the change you wish to see in the world' — all carry the residue of a million graphics, mugs, and tattoos.
The cure is restoration: returning to the full passage, the author's voice, the original context. Reading the line where it was first written, surrounded by what it was responding to, often makes it new again.
“Live, laugh, love.”
Keep reading the glossary
A phrase or quote so overused that it has lost most of its force.
A short, vivid extract from a longer speech, designed to be repeated by news media.
A statement so obviously true that it is almost not worth saying.
The convention of citing only the author's name when quoting in casual writing.