<p>Using famous quotes: good or bad idea?</p>
<p>How about less famous quotes that are very important to you?</p>
<p>I don’t know. Good question though, I had a quote by Leo Tolstoy on my first draft. Took it off though because I thought it was a risk. Well known quotes are def. a risk, the more obscure ones would be better because the adcoms have not heard them. Just my opinion though; If I were an adcom I would stab myself in the face If I had to read thousands of essays that had the quote “you don’t know what you have until it’s gone.”</p>
<p>personally, i wouldn’t use cliched quotes… famous or not. If you think using a quote will really highlight your essay, go ahead. But don’t just stick it in there and not have it mesh with your topic.</p>
<p>Ideally, you’d want to pick a quote by a famous person, that everyone knowledgeable should have heard of (and recall once written), but that is not cliche or overly popular. At least imo.</p>