A learned historian declared to me of a contemporary, that the latter had appropriated his researches; he might, indeed, and he had a right to refer to the same originals; but if his predecessor had opened the sources for him, gratitude is not a silent virtue. – Isaac D’Israeli, “Quotation,” A Second Series of Curiosities of Literature

Children seldom misquote. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldnt have said. – Anon.

I had continued jotting down good lines—once the eyes and ears are awakened to the possibilities they can’t be put back to sleep… – Robert Byrne, The Third and Possibly the Best 637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said,

The present volume is the result of a taste for collecting poetical quotations, which beset me in the days of my nonage, now more than half a century ago…. I read the poets diligently, and registered, in a portable form, whatever I thought apposite and striking. – Henry G. Bohn, A Dictionary of Quotations from the English Poets, 1881