Blockquotes have become an essential feature for many text-heavy sites looking to grab readers’ attention. They can be great tools when emphasizing the main ideas in your website, and they can help convey your website’s key points when your readers want to skim your text.
Whether you implement blockquotes to help indicate a quote’s original source or simply to add visual impact, one thing’s certain: The applications of blockquotes are endless.
A blockquote element can also come in many variations. They can range from simple, passive designs to state-of-the-art designs filled to the brim with innovative ideas. Needless to say, when it comes to small website features like blockquotes, every little detail makes a big difference regarding their design, structure, and styling.
To help you come up with new blockquote ideas, this article will showcase some of the best CSS blockquotes available today from Codepen. By the end of this article, you will no doubt be inspired to create your own awesome blockquote styling. But first of all, what is a blockquote really?
What Are CSS Blockquotes?
To put it simply, CSS blockquotes are a formatting style to demonstrate that a section of text is, in reality, a quote. This is usually done with an HTML element that creates an indentation. Essentially, it shows that you are quoting somebody else, and simplifies citing the quote’s source.
These blockquotes are usually separated from the rest of the surrounding text by an indented paragraph or a separated text block. Often they are even further differentiated from the rest of the text by the use of italics or indented text, although this is not always necessary.
Now that you know what CSS Blockquotes are, let’s take a look at some examples. Here are 42 of the best blockquotes out there today. Enjoy!
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Subtle Quote
By Tim Holman
Tim Holman starts this list out strong with a great blockquote. As the name would suggest, it’s basic and subtle, but that’s sometimes best. Instead of distracting visitors with too many features, a simple blockquote element will direct readers’ attention to where you want it, instead of confusing them with too much information.
Flexible, Full-Width, “Justified” Text Blocks
By Reuben L. Lillie
As the name suggests, this flexible blockquote has the goal to grab readers’ attention by using full-width text blocks. It’s fairly straightforward, which makes it useful in many different environments, and its minimal design makes it a great choice for websites looking for an easygoing vibe.
Quotes animation
By Sabine Robart
This is a blockquote that’s built on pure CSS code. It uses a flashy purple gradient that catches visitors’ attention.
CSS Quote Box Hover Effects
By abdel Rhman
This is a fancy blockquote style that uses hover effects as an accent. Whenever you hover over the blockquote, the elements will move with your mouse. Also, it’s done entirely in CSS code, so no need for mix-and-matching JavaScript into your website.
Shiienurm quote card
By Tobias Johansson
This is a cool group of blockquotes that you can switch between. If you need more than one quote per quote box, keep this one in mind.
Responsive Pull Quote
By Brian Haferkamp
This is an interesting pull quote that is actually—A FAKE! In reality, the text moves, but the quote stays in the same location. This creates a cool font style without using a CSS grid.
CSS blockquotes with hover transition
By Pali Madra
This is a basic blockquote with eye-catching hover effects. It uses very simple CSS code, and barely any HTML code at all to make an easy-to-implement design.
Single Element CSS Block Quote
By Dave Alger
This is a simple boxed design that uses flexible design features to keep its options open. If you don’t like the size, font, or color scheme used in the example, you can change them to meet your own preferences.
blockquote stylée littéraire
By Vero
This blockquote uses a bright, peachy background that calms visitors on entry. It also uses purely CSS code, which makes it easy to change and adjust when necessary. It also includes a link to the quote’s origin, which is a nice added touch.
Day 007 Author Quote
By Mohan Khadka
This is another card quote widget that’s built from HTML and CSS code, and no JavaScript. It lets you display a group of quotes in a modern way, without using too much space. Although, do keep in mind that this isn’t quite a blockquote. But it still can be used as inspiration when building your own blockquote, as it does include many similar elements.
Coffee Quote – blockquote, flexbox, rgba, before content
By Jacob Lett
This is a blockquote element that experiments with multiple CSS techniques like colors, positioning, transparency, and Flexbox. It can be a great starting point for beginners looking for ideas.
Random Wisdom Generator
By Paul Le
This is an interesting new method of adding multiple quotes in one location. Instead of creating a slideshow of quotes, this places new quotes automatically into the same location when a certain button is pressed. This means that many more quotes can be stored in one location.
Quote: Steven Pressfield • Start before you are ready
By Juan Pablo
This blockquote displays a quote, separated from the rest of the text with two white lines, with a mixed background color of blue and yellow. It also uses a large and clear font that makes for easy comprehension.
Blockquote Patterns
By Derek Wheelden
The blockquotes display so perfectly that sometimes less is more. They all use simple CSS code, which makes them a great example for new coders. The quotes also have a unique and clean design due to their distinctive classes.
Blockquote Auto Tweet Button
By Mark Peck
This is a novel blockquote that offers the ability to tweet the content of a quote. Sadly, to be able to add this functionality, you have to use additional JavaScript. However, you can delete the JavaScript included while keeping the original CSS styling for your blockquote.
Blockquote Element
By Eurocode
This is a group of CSS blockquotes that demonstrates different styles, colors, and fonts that you can use. They’re simple, but they get the job done.
Quote
By Emad Elsaid
This is a user-friendly blockquote that uses a combination of just CSS and HTML. It features an image of the quote’s author, along with a dialog box to display the quote.
Modern Block Quote Styles
This blockquote uses a very thorough and eye-catching style. It’s divided into a contrast of white and black backgrounds, with a side of quotation marks as an accent piece. This contrast creates an interesting piece that attracts viewers upon entry.
get you some bacon
By Screeny
This is a very elegant and attractive quote style that places readability above all else. To achieve this, it is written with a particularly easy-to-read typeface. It also includes highlighted keywords, which further improves its readability.
CSS blockquotes
By Cristian Di Salvo
This is a group of two simple blockquotes that use background images to great effect. The images are also randomly generated, which makes for a different experience each time.
Quote styling
By Joe Hastings
This is a stylish blockquote that uses an almost typewriter-style font. It also uses simple code to make for an easy-to-implement blockquote.
Awesome Blockquote Styling with CSS
By Max
If you want a universally applicable CSS style for blockquotes, this one’s for you. It’s got a simple bootstrap style that makes it a great choice for first-time CSS users. It’s also very responsive, which is an added benefit.
Flexbox Quote Bricks
By Andrea Roenning
This group of CSS blockquotes looks like a brick wall. Each line is made up of one brick with a quote, and another with a connected photo illustrating that quote. This creates an impressive display that screams professionalism.
Stylish Blockquote
By DariyGRAY
If you want a unique CSS blockquote without any unnecessary frills, this might be the one for you. It uses a uniquely styled custom CSS for the HTML elements, creating an interesting slanted piece.
Blockquote
By Harm Putman
This is another simple CSS blockquote that differentiates itself by using a quotation glyph at the top of the sheet. It’s lightweight and straightforward, and won’t slow down your website’s loading times in any way.
CSS Blockquote style 2
By Abu Bakar Halid
This is another simple blockquote that makes quoting look effortless. It also uses simple code, so it would be easy to apply to your own website.
Pure CSS Blockquote
By John Fink
This is a responsive and elegant blockquote with good readability. It also has a cool animation for whenever you highlight the quoted text.
Startup Quotes
By Alex Efremov
This blockquote style displays the quote front and center in an easy-to-read font. The quote is also italicized, which gives it a literary impression.
Pure CSS quotes
By Studio VA
This is a demonstration of multiple pure CSS blockquotes. No JavaScript, no complicated classes, only simple blockquotes.
Quote hovering
By Lisi
This is another demonstration of multiple CSS blockquotes, but this time with an emphasis on hovering animations. Each quote has its own animation, each demonstrating an aspect of the quote’s personality.
Material Design Blockquote
By Michael Mammoliti
This is a blockquote style that follows all of the design principles outlined by Google. It has a clean design, and its simple code makes it easy to incorporate into a WordPress website. It also uses simple colors, which means that it can be easily blended into your site’s existing brand.
Quote cards
By Sabine Robart
This style displays quotes on eye-catching cards. On each card, the author’s name is displayed in a bold and clear font, which places greater emphasis on it.
Blockquote Styles
By Chris Smith
Here you can find a collection of five blockquote styles. Each includes basic yet interesting design choices that make them a great starting point for new coders.
Quote Effect using a CSS Blur Filter
By 14islands
Here’s an interesting quote effect, the CSS Blur Filter. It can be a great tool to catch visitors’ attention upon entry, but do be careful. Using it too much can be distracting for your readers. Like all things, moderation leads to success.
Text Box / Quote Styles
MikeBecva
This is another collection of quote styles, 19 of them this time. This comes in pretty handy, as different quote styles are often used for different purposes, so having more than one gives your website more options.
nested quotes
By Gunnar Bittersmann
This quote style focuses on nested quotes: small quote snippets on the right-hand side of your website. These quotes can help break up your website from monotonous text, and in a different way than your typical left-hand quote box.
Typography Quote
By Josh Collinsworth
This is an elegant yet simple blockquote that can work in almost any setting. If you’re wondering whether your quote would fit well with the style, you can place your quote inside as text. The author explains that everything will still function the same way.
Quotes
By Iulian Savin
This is a pure CSS quote box that uses a black-and-yellow color scheme to catch visitors’ attention. It’s definitely a good choice if you’re looking for a responsive blockquote solution.
Quotes with Font Awesome and pseudo elements
By Jaime
This is an eye-catching quote style that features two different styles of boxes. To start, it shows a large, front-page quote box that you would use to greet your visitors. After that, it shows a smaller quote box that you would use to break up a large amount of text. Both are good, but both have different uses.
Quote Animation Inspiration
By Valentin Galmand
This gives you four examples of quote box hover effects that include the “Transform” property. Each of the four animations moves to show the author of the quote when hovered on.
Fancy Blockquote Style
By Matt Soria
This is a completely CSS and HTML-coded blockquote style. This makes it lightweight and easy to implement into WordPress websites.
Styling blockquotes with box-shadow
By RamĂłn M. Cros
This is a new-age blockquote style that combines interesting colors with a simple design to create a powerful tool. The neon blue color scheme also contributes a lot towards its futuristic feel.
FAQ on CSS Blockquotes
What is the purpose of CSS blockquotes?
CSS blockquotes are used to style quoted text in a visually appealing and distinct manner. By applying CSS to the <blockquote>
HTML element, you can customize the appearance of a quote, making it stand out from the rest of the content on your webpage. This is helpful for emphasizing important quotes or highlighting testimonials from clients.
How do I create a CSS blockquote?
To create a CSS blockquote, you’ll first need to include the <blockquote>
HTML element in your webpage’s code. Then, create a new CSS style rule targeting the blockquote
element. You can apply various styles, like changing the font, text color, and background, or adding borders and padding. Here’s an example:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
blockquote {
font-style: italic;
border-left: 3px solid #ccc;
padding-left: 20px;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<blockquote>
This is a sample quote.
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>
How do I add a citation to a CSS blockquote?
To add a citation to your CSS blockquote, use the <cite>
HTML element within your <blockquote>
. This tags the source of the quote and can be styled using CSS as well. For instance, you can change the font size, text color, or add italics. Here’s an example:
<blockquote>
This is a sample quote.
<cite>John Doe</cite>
</blockquote>
How can I style nested blockquotes?
Styling nested blockquotes can be achieved using CSS selectors. You can target specific levels of nested blockquotes by chaining the blockquote
element in your selector. For example, to style a second-level nested blockquote, you can use the following CSS:
blockquote blockquote {
/* Your styles for nested blockquote go here */
}
Can I use images with CSS blockquotes?
Yes, you can use images with CSS blockquotes. You can either add an image within the <blockquote>
element or use CSS to set a background image. To set a background image, use the background-image
property in your CSS:
blockquote {
background-image: url('path/to/image.jpg');
/* Other styles for blockquote go here */
}
How do I create a pull quote using CSS?
A pull quote is a visually distinct quote that stands out from the main content. To create a pull quote using CSS, you can create a new CSS class with custom styles and apply it to your <blockquote>
element. For example:
.pull-quote {
font-size: 1.5em;
font-weight: bold;
/* Additional styles for pull quote go here */
}
htmlCopy code<blockquote class="pull-quote">
This is a pull quote.
</blockquote>
How do I customize the appearance of blockquotes for print?
To customize the appearance of blockquotes for print, use a CSS media query that targets the print
media type. Inside the media query, define your custom styles for the blockquote
element. For example:
cssCopy code@media print {
blockquote {
font-size: 14pt;
/* Additional print styles go here */
}
}
Are there any accessibility considerations for CSS blockquotes?
Accessibility is essential when styling blockquotes. Ensure that the text is easily readable by choosing contrasting colors for text and background. Also, consider using the <q>
element for inline quotes and the <blockquote>
element for larger, stand-alone quotes. Screen readers may interpret these elements differently,
interpreting these elements differently, which can help users with disabilities better understand the context of the quoted text. Additionally, use the <cite>
element for citing the source of the quote. This provides semantic meaning to the citation, making it more accessible to screen reader users.
How can I create responsive CSS blockquotes?
To create responsive CSS blockquotes, use media queries to adjust the styles based on the screen size. You can change properties like font size, margins, and padding to make the blockquote look good on different devices. Here’s an example:
cssCopy code/* Default styles for blockquote */
blockquote {
font-size: 1.2em;
padding: 1em;
}
/* Styles for smaller screens */
@media (max-width: 600px) {
blockquote {
font-size: 1em;
padding: 0.5em;
}
}
Can I use CSS animations or transitions with blockquotes?
Yes, you can use CSS animations or transitions with blockquotes. To add animations, use the @keyframes
rule and the animation
property. For transitions, use the transition
property. This can make your blockquotes more engaging and draw attention to the quoted text. For example, you can create a simple fade-in effect using a transition:
cssCopy codeblockquote {
opacity: 0;
transition: opacity 1s ease-in;
}
blockquote:hover {
opacity: 1;
}
In this example, the blockquote will fade in when the user hovers over it.
Why Should You Use CSS Blockquotes?
Well, there you have it, the best CSS Blockquotes available on Codepen. Hopefully, this article has helped you better understand CSS blockquote styling, as well as how to incorporate blockquotes into your own WordPress website in the future.
Because of CSS’s flexibility, your blockquotes can be easily customized to meet your website’s brand and help create more visually appealing content. All you have to do is implement them.
If you liked this article about CSS blockquotes, you should check out this article about CSS animation libraries.
There are also similar articles discussing cool CSS buttons, CSS shadow effects, CSS blur effects, and CSS charts.
And let’s not forget about articles on CSS headers, CSS parallax effects, CSS animations on scroll, and CSS page transitions.