[T]here are aphorisms that, like airplanes, stay up only while they are in motion. – Vladimir Nabokov, The Gift, 1963, translated from Russian by Michael Scammell

Patch grief with proverbs; make misfortune drunk… – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, c.1598

Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, May 1849

Do not shun this maxim because it is common-place. On the contrary, take the closest heed of what observant men, who would probably like to show originality, are yet constrained to repeat. Therein lies the marrow of the wisdom of the world. – Arthur Helps, “Chapter IV,” Companions of My Solitude, 1851