Many useful and valuable books lie buried in shops and libraries, unknown and unexamined, unless some lucky compiler opens them by chance, and finds an easy spoil of wit and learning. – Samuel Johnson, 1760

…the curious hunter-up of rare quotations… the young and struggling scribbler… – William Francis Henry King, “Introduction,” Classical and Foreign Quotations, 18

Do not shun this maxim because it is common-place. On the contrary, take the closest heed of what observant men, who would probably like to show originality, are yet constrained to repeat. Therein lies the marrow of the wisdom of the world. – Arthur Helps, “Chapter IV,” Companions of My Solitude, 1851