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

[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

For I am proverbed with a grandsire phrase… – William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet