Whatever we think and say is wonderfully better for our spirits and trust in another mouth. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Quotation and Originality,” Letters and Social Aims, 1876

Short isolated sentences were the mode in which ancient Wisdom delighted to convey its precepts, for the regulation of life and manners. – William Warburton, “Sermon IV”

We who are quotatious are never truly alone, but always hear the cheerful flow of remarks made by dead writers so much more intelligent than we. – Joseph Epstein, “Quotatious,” A Line Out for a Walk: Familiar Essays, 1991

There is hardly a mistake which in the course of our lives we have committed, but some proverb, had we known and attended to its lesson, might have saved us from it. – Richard Chenevix Trench, Proverbs and Their Lessons, 1905