It should be a pleasure to the appreciative reader, while recognizing their beauty, to cull these flowers of thought for the benefit of those who, less fortunate than himself, have not the time to indulge in literary pleasures. – Maturin M. Ballou, January 1886, preface to Edge-Tools of Speech

You complain, Velox, that the epigrams which I write are long. You yourself write nothing; your attempts are shorter. – Marcus Valerius Martialis, translated from Latin

There is hardly a mistake which in the course of our lives we have committed, but some proverb, had we known and attended to its lesson, might have saved us from it. – Richard Chenevix Trench, Proverbs and Their Lessons, 1905

Collections of gnomes, adages, sayings, and parables have been made from times immemorial in all countries and in all languages possessing some kind of literature. – E.H. Michelsen, A Manual of Quotations from the Ancient, Modern, and Oriental La