To appreciate and use correctly a valuable maxim requires a genius, a vital appropriating exercise of mind, closely allied to that which first created it. – William Rounseville Alger, “The Utility and the Futility of Aphorisms,” The Atla

Books of quotation are not only of importance to the reader for what they contain of matured thought, but also for what they suggest. Our brains receive the spark and become luminous, like inflammable material by the contact of flint and steel. – Maturin M. Ballou, January 1886, preface to Edge-Tools of Speech

As proverbs are meant to be portable, it is essential that they should be packed up in few words… – “Proverbs Secular and Sacred,” The North British Review, February 1858

One of the great attractions of quotations is that they are rich in ideas which can be tailored to specific purposes. – Robert Irvine Fitzhenry (1918–2008), The Harper Book of Quotations