Collections of gnomes, adages, sayings, and parables have been made from times immemorial in all countries and in all languages possessing some kind of literature. – E.H. Michelsen, A Manual of Quotations from the Ancient, Modern, and Oriental La

Nor must you find fault with me if I often give you what I have borrowed from my various reading, in the very words of the authors themselves. – Macrobius, translated from Latin

They are the abridgments of wisdom. – Sumner Ellis, Hints on Preaching: A Cloud of Witnesses, 1879

Besides, it happens (how, I cannot tell) that an idea launched like a javelin in proverbial form strikes with sharper point on the hearer’s mind and leaves implanted barbs for meditation… – Desiderius Erasmus, Adages