The short sayings of the wise and good men are of great value, like the dust of gold, or the sparks of diamonds. – Attributed to Tillotson in A Dictionary of Thoughts: A Cyclopedia of Laconic Quo

Mr. [Thomas] Gray the poet has often observed to me that if a man were to form a Book of what he had seen and heard himself it must in whatever hands prove a most useful and entertaining one. – Horace Walpole, quoted in Walpoliana, 1800

Apothegms to thinking minds are the seeds from which spring vast fields of new thought, that may be further cultivated, beautified, and enlarged. – Ramsay, as quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: A Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotation

You will find professed quotations from authors, of the correctness of which you will not be satisfied; and how important is it to be able to satisfy yourself by examining the originals! – Theodore Dwight, quoted in President Dwight’s Decisions of Questions Discu