A true quotation cannot be divorced from the character who uttered or scribbled it; it should say as much about the person quoted as about the particular subject referred to, and for this reason an anthology of quotations should be a kind of portrait gallery. – Robert Andrews, The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations, “Introduction”

One is more apt to become wise by doing fool things than by reading wise sayings. – Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

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