A knowledge of general literature is one of the evidences of an enlightened mind; and to give an apt quotation at a fitting time, proves that the mind is stored with sentential lore that can always be used to great advantage by its possessor. – James Ellis, quoted in Day’s Collacon: An Encyclopædia of Prose Quota

The hunter for aphorisms on human nature has to fish in muddy water, and he is even condemned to find much of his own mind. – Francis H. Bradley, Aphorisms, 1930

Oh, to say something so fine, so memorable, that it carries across time, oceans, and languages! – Willis Goth Regier, Quotology, 2010

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