A true quotation cannot be divorced from the character who uttered or scribbled it; it should say as much about the person quoted as about the particular subject referred to, and for this reason an anthology of quotations should be a kind of portrait gallery. – Robert Andrews, The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations, “Introduction”

The mind will quote whether the tongue does or not. – Attributed to Emerson in Edge-Tools of Speech by Maturin M. Ballou, 1886

Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones at hand do more toward a happy life than whole volumes that we know not where to find. – Seneca

Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced—even a Proverb is no proverb to you till your Life has illustrated it. – John Keats, letter to George and Georgiana Keats, February 24, 1819