I have drag-netted the ocean, as well as the numerous narrow streams and wide rivers of literature… – Frank J. Wilstach, A Dictionary of Similes, 1916

I would fain coin wisdom,—mould it, I mean, into maxims, proverbs, sentences, that can easily be retained and transmitted. Would that I could denounce and banish from the language of men—as base money—the words by which they cheat and are cheated! – Joseph Joubert, translated from French

A man of maxims only is like a Cyclops with one eye, and that in the back of his head. – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, as quoted in Leigh Hunt’s London Journal and The

You complain, Velox, that the epigrams which I write are long. You yourself write nothing; your attempts are shorter. – Marcus Valerius Martialis, translated from Latin