Apothegms to thinking minds are the seeds from which spring vast fields of new thought, that may be further cultivated, beautified, and enlarged. – Ramsay, as quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: A Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotation

The divine gift is ever the instant life, which receives and uses and creates, and can well bury the old in the omnipotency with which Nature decomposes all her harvest for recomposition. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Quotation and Originality,” Letters and Social Aims, 1876

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

There are plenty of good maxims in the world; we fail only in applying them. – Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), translated from the French by an unnamed transl