We are as much informed of a writer’s genius by what he selects as by what he originates. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Quotation and Originality,” Letters and Social Aims, 1876

A picture, it is said, is worth a thousand words, but cannot a few well-spoken words convey as many pictures? – Author Unknown

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more. – Winston Churchill, Roving Commission: My Early Life, 1930

An epigram often flashes light into regions where reason shines but dimly. – Edwin P. Whipple, lecture delivered before the Boston Mercantile Library Associa