Infinitives In English Quotes & Sayings

American Heritage Dictionary: "The only rationale for condemning the construction is based on a false analogy with Latin. . . . In general, the Usage Panel accepts the split infinitive." Merriam-Webster Unabridged online dictionary: "Even though there has never been a rational basis for objecting to the split infinitive, the subject has become a fixture of folk belief about grammar. . . . Modern commentators . . . usually say it's all right to split an infinitive in the interest of clarity. Since clarity is the usual reason for splitting, this advice means merely that you can split them whenever you need to." Encarta World English Dictionary: "There is no grammatical basis for rejecting split infinitives. — Steven Pinker

What if Eminem was black? would he have sold five mil.
Or would he be 1 out of 5 million rappers with no deal? — Fredro Starr

The experience of watching Leonard get better was like reading certain difficult books. It was plowing through late James, or the pages about agrarian reform in Anna Karinina, until you suddenly got to a good part again, which kept on getting better and better until you were almost grateful for the previous dull stretch because it increased your eventual pleasure. All of a sudden, Leonard was his old self again, extroverted, energetic, charismatic, and spontaneous. — Jeffrey Eugenides

No matter what the reason, if you start to scream and shout, you look a fool, and you feel a fool, and you earn the disrespect of everyone. — Michael Caine

I grew up in New York City, where we played highly unorganized sports: stick ball, stoop ball, and the occasional game of baseball with no adult supervision. — Jeff Greenfield

If you go through any newspaper or magazine and look for active, kicking verbs in the sentences, you will realize that this lack of well used verbs is the main trouble with modern English writing. Almost all nonfiction nowadays is written in a sort of pale, colorless sauce of passives and infinitives, motionless and flat as paper. — Rudolf Flesch

Socialism was made to order for tyrants. — James Cook

Action is the antidote to fear. If you want to play the game, you have to act. There is both an inner game and an outer game in a winning presentation. Did you catch on to the sports metaphor? — Diane Windingland

The difference between resemblance nominalism and class nominalism is that the former, but not the latter, brings in resemblance to account for the truthmakers of the propositions in question. — Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

It's interesting when you read the life of Christ how much of his time he spent healing the sick. There must have been a reason for that - he was modelling for us what it is we are intended to do by following his path. — Francis Collins