He picked something out of everything he read. – Pliny

There are but few proverbial sayings that are not true, for they are all drawn from experience itself, which is the mother of all sciences. – Miguel de Cervantes

I have drag-netted the ocean, as well as the numerous narrow streams and wide rivers of literature… – Frank J. Wilstach, A Dictionary of Similes, 1916

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