The wise men of old have sent most of their morality down the stream of time in the light skiff of apothegm or epigram; and the proverbs of nations, which embody the commonsense of nations, have the brisk concussion of the most sparkling wit. – Edwin P. Whipple, lecture delivered before the Boston Mercantile Library Associa

Aphorism, n.: A concise, clever statement you don’t think of until too late. – James Alexander Thom

Good quotations, like good thoughts, are true wealth. – Annie E. Lancaster, quoted in Day’s Collacon: An Encyclopædia of Pros