The mind will quote whether the tongue does or not. – Attributed to Emerson in Edge-Tools of Speech by Maturin M. Ballou, 1886

But further, in order to embellish it with flowers of language and gems of thought, it is not necessary for this ornamentation to be spread evenly over the entire speech, but it must be so distributed that there may be brilliant jewels placed at various points as a sort of decoration. – Cicero, De oratore

The multiplicity of facts and writings is become so great that every thing must soon be reduced to extracts and dictionaries. – Voltaire