We who are quotatious are never truly alone, but always hear the cheerful flow of remarks made by dead writers so much more intelligent than we. – Joseph Epstein, “Quotatious,” A Line Out for a Walk: Familiar Essays, 1991

I am wonderfully pleased when I meet with any passage in an old Greek or Latin author, that is not blown upon, and which I have never met with in any quotation. – Joseph Addison, Spectator, No.464

The words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels. – Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882–1927)

To appreciate and use correctly a valuable maxim requires a genius, a vital appropriating exercise of mind, closely allied to that which first created it. – William Rounseville Alger, “The Utility and the Futility of Aphorisms,” The Atla