The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit. – Attributed to W. Somerset Maugham

The quotation-business is booming. No subdivision of the culture seems too narrow to have a quotation book of its own…. It would be an understatement to say that these books lean on one another. To compare them is to stroll through a glorious jungle of incestuous mutual plagiarism. – James Gleick, 1993

The difference between my quotations and those of the next man is that I leave out the inverted commas. – George Moore, quoted in Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Times by Laurenc

Sensible men show their sense by saying much in few words. Noble actions are the substance of life; good sayings its ornament and guide. – Charles Simmons, “Aphorisms Introductory,” Laconic Manual and Brief Remarker, 18