For I often please myself with the fancy, now that I may have saved from oblivion the only striking passage in a whole volume, and now that I may have attracted notice to a writer undeservedly forgotten. – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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

Sensible men show their sense by saying much in few words. Noble actions are the substance of life; good sayings its ornament and guide. – Charles Simmons, “Aphorisms Introductory,” Laconic Manual and Brief Remarker, 18

I doubt whether Cromwell or Milton could have rivaled [William Lloyd] Garrison in this field of quotation; and the power of quotation is as dreadful a weapon as any which the human intellect can forge. – John Jay Chapman