Someone who can write aphorisms should not fritter away his time writing essays. – Karl Kraus, translated from German by Harry Zohn

An epigram often flashes light into regions where reason shines but dimly. – Edwin P. Whipple, lecture delivered before the Boston Mercantile Library Associa

The present volume is the result of a taste for collecting poetical quotations, which beset me in the days of my nonage, now more than half a century ago…. I read the poets diligently, and registered, in a portable form, whatever I thought apposite and striking. – Henry G. Bohn, A Dictionary of Quotations from the English Poets, 1881

Most anthologists of quotations are like those who eat cherries or oysters; first picking the best ones and winding up by eating everything. – Sebastian Roch Nicolas Chamfort