Whoever reads only to transcribe or quote shining remarks without entering into the genius and spirit of the author, will be apt to be misled out of a regular way of thinking, and the product of all this will be found to be a manifest incoherent piece of patchwork. – Attributed to Swift in A Dictionary of Thoughts, Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Q

The more an idea is developed, the more concise becomes its expression: the more a tree is pruned, the better is the fruit. – Alfred Bougeart, quoted in A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedn

The man whose book is filled with quotations, may be said to creep along the shore of authors, as if he were afraid to trust himself to the free compass of reasoning. – Quoted unattributed in The Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure, April 1

I believe it was Gayelord Hauser, the nutritionist, who said that “you are what you eat,” but if you happen to be an intellectual, you are what you quote. – Joseph Epstein, “Quotatious,” A Line Out for a Walk: Familiar Essays, 1991