Dr. Richard Bentley (1662-1742)… is said one day, on finding his son reading a novel, to have remarked—’Why read a book that you cannot quote?’— a saying which affords an amusing illustration of the nature and object of his literary studies. – Cyclopædia of English Literature edited by Robert Chambers, 1844

They have written volumes out of which a couplet of verse, a period in prose, may cling to the rock of ages, as a shell that survives a deluge. – Edward Bulwer Lytton

What gems of painting or statuary are in the world of art, or what flowers are in the world of nature, are gems of thought to the cultivated and thinking. – Attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes in Excellent Quotations for Home and School

To such as these we offer, with some confidence, and with no little sympathy, our collection of choice flowers, culled from the gardens of Poesy: may they refresh the mind, and gladden the heart, and beautify the path, of many a careworn toiler in the fields of labour, of whatsoever kind. – H.G. Adams, A Cyclopædia of Poetical Quotations; Consisting of Choice Passa