…though many a gatherer has carried his basket through these diamond districts of the mind… – William Rounseville Alger, “The Utility and the Futility of Aphorisms,” The Atla

The aphorism is cultivated only by those who have known fear in the midst of words, that fear of collapsing with all the words. – E.M. Cioran, “Atrophy of Utterance,” All Gall Is Divided: Gnomes and Apothegms,

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

Is all literature eavesdropping, and all art Chinese imitation? our life a custom, and our body borrowed, like a beggar’s dinner, from a hundred charities? – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Quotation and Originality,” Letters and Social Aims, 1876