[S]ources are not too reliable. The words and thoughts are the thing. “The best words in the best order” is the object of all quotations. Who made the order and when is of interest, but not vital as the many quotations by “Anon.” testify. – Robert Irvine Fitzhenry (1918–2008), The Harper Book of Quotations

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

To be amused by what you read — that is the great spring of happy quotations. – C.E. Montague (1867–1928), “Quotation”

Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted, than when we read it in the original author? – Philip Gilbert Hamerton, The Intellectual Life, 1873