The words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels. – Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882–1927)

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

It is the little writer rather than the great writer who seems never to quote, and the reason is that he is never really doing anything else. – Havelock Ellis, The Dance of Life, 1923

My quarrel with him is, that his works contain nothing worth quoting; and a book that furnishes no quotations, is me judice, no book,—it is a plaything. – Thomas Love Peacock, Crotchet Castle, 1831 (The Rev. Dr. Folliott)