…the taste of the finely-worded truth rolled upon the tongue as its thought is revolved in the mind. – William Francis Henry King, “Introduction,” Classical and Foreign Quotations, 18

Take my advice, dear reader, don’t talk epigrams even if you have the gift. I know, to those have, the temptation is almost irresistible. But resist it. Epigram and truth are rarely commensurate. Truth has to be somewhat chiselled, as it were, before it will quite fit into an epigram. – Joseph Farrell, “About Conversation,” The Lectures of a Certain Professor, 1877

Quotable quotes are coins rubbed smooth by circulation. – Louis Menand, “Notable Quotables: Is there anything that is not a quotation?” 20

I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made. – Samuel Johnson, quoted in The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, with Samuel Joh