It should be a pleasure to the appreciative reader, while recognizing their beauty, to cull these flowers of thought for the benefit of those who, less fortunate than himself, have not the time to indulge in literary pleasures. – Maturin M. Ballou, January 1886, preface to Edge-Tools of Speech

Why are not more gems from our great authors scattered over the country? Great books are not in everybodys reach; and though it is better to know them thoroughly than to know them only here and there, yet it is a good work to give a little to those who have not the time nor means to get more. – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

No claim is made here for scholarship, or for the earliest use of a quote or even, in some cases, the precise wording…. No matter: in my opinion, they are in this form graceful, compact and cogent. – R.I. Fitzhenry, preface to The David & Charles Book of Quotations, September 198

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