There is a homely directness about these rustic apothegms which makes them far more palatable than the strained and sophisticated epigrams of the characters of Oscar Wilde’s plays, who are ever striving strenuously to dazzle us with verbal pyrotechnics. – Brander Matthews, “American Aphorisms,” Harper’s Magazine, November 1915,

I wonder if “an” ever occurs before “haughty” except in a quotation, or whether you can make anything sound like a quotation by adding a word like “goeth”? – Gary Saul Morson, The Words of Others: From Quotations to Culture, 2011

No, Sir, it is a good thing; there is a community of mind in it. Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world. – Samuel Johnson, quoted in The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell, Volume II

We sometimes think of quotations as extracts from larger texts, but some quotations originated complete unto themselves. – Gary Saul Morson, The Words of Others: From Quotations to Culture, 2011