Epigram: 1.A vividly expressed truth that is so, or not, as the case may be. 2.A dash of wit and a jigger of wisdom, flavored with surprise. – Elbert Hubbard, The Roycroft Dictionary Concocted by Ali Baba and the Bunch on R

Is all literature eavesdropping, and all art Chinese imitation? our life a custom, and our body borrowed, like a beggar’s dinner, from a hundred charities? – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Quotation and Originality,” Letters and Social Aims, 1876

In phrases as brief as a breath worldly wisdom concentrates. – Willis Goth Regier, Quotology, 2010

But further, in order to embellish it with flowers of language and gems of thought, it is not necessary for this ornamentation to be spread evenly over the entire speech, but it must be so distributed that there may be brilliant jewels placed at various points as a sort of decoration. – Cicero, De oratore