…though many a gatherer has carried his basket through these diamond districts of the mind… – William Rounseville Alger, “The Utility and the Futility of Aphorisms,” The Atla

That part of a work of one author found in another is not of itself piracy, or sufficient to support an action; a man may adopt part of the work of another; he may so make use of another’s labors for the promotion of science and the benefit of the public. – Lord Ellenborough, quoted in Bouvier’s Law Dictionary by John Bouvier, 8th

The attribution of a speaker is in fact a part of the quotation. Some statements simply are better if a certain famous person said them. – Gary Saul Morson, “Bakhtin, The Genres of Quotation, and The Aphoristic Consciou

[A]s if it were not the masterful will which subjugates the forces of nature to be the genii of the lamp… that forces a life-thought into a pregnant word or phrase, and sends it ringing through the ages! – William Mathews, “Self-Reliance,” Getting on in the World; Or, Hints on Success