It should be a pleasure to the appreciative reader, while recognizing their beauty, to cull these flowers of thought for the benefit of those who, less fortunate than himself, have not the time to indulge in literary pleasures. – Maturin M. Ballou, January 1886, preface to Edge-Tools of Speech

It is a rich storehouse for those who love quotations. It is as full of fine bon mots as a Christmas pudding is full of plums. – “Fitz-Greene Halleck as a Poet,” Hours at Home: A Popular Monthly of Instruction

Perish the men who said our good things before us! – Aelius Donatus, quoted in Edge-Tools of Speech by Maturin M. Ballou, 1886

Only the use of footnotes enables historians to make their texts not monologues but conversations, in which modern scholars, their predecessors, and their subjects all take part. – Anthony Grafton (b.1950), The Footnote: A Curious History, “Epilogue: Some Concl