To be amused by what you read — that is the great spring of happy quotations. – C.E. Montague (1867–1928), “Quotation”

People will accept your idea more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first. – David H. Comins, quoted in The Washingtonian, Volume14, 1978

The Grecian’s maxim would indeed be a sweeping clause in Literature; it would reduce many a giant to a pygmy; many a speech to a sentence; and many a folio to a primer. – C.C. Colton, “Preface,” Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words: Addressed To Those

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