The epigram is a handy weapon, having the keenness of the stiletto, and its glitter. – William Watson, “A Note on Epigram,” 1883 [a little altered —tε&#5511

I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made. – Samuel Johnson, quoted in The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, with Samuel Joh

He picked something out of everything he read. – Pliny

Then your words of abuse today may turn into a universally valid principle of denigration, for words are magical formulae. They leave fingermarks behind on the brain, which in the twinkling of an eye becomes the footprints of history. One ought to watch one’s every word. – Franz Kafka, quoted by Gustav Janouch, Conversations with Kafka