He who trains his tongue to quote the learned sages will be known, far and wide, as a smart-ass. – Howard Kandel, The Power of Positive Pessimism: Proverbs for Our Times, 1964

We’re a compulsive but amiable crew, those of us who feel, or have felt, the compulsion to re-record the bright thoughts of other men and women. – Joseph Epstein, “Quotatious,” A Line Out for a Walk: Familiar Essays, 1991

Quotation mistakes, inadvertency, expedition, and human lapses, may make not only moles but warts in learned authors… – Thomas Browne, Christian Morals, 1716 (Part the Second, sect. ii)

The adventitious beauty of poetry may be felt in the greater delight which a verse gives in happy quotation than in the poem. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Art”