As by some might be saide of me: that here I have but gathered a nosegay of strange floures, and have put nothing of mine unto it, but the thred to binde them. Certes, I have given unto publike opinion, that these borrowed ornaments accompany me; but I meane not they should cover or hide me… – Michel de Montaigne, “Of Phisiognomy,” translated by John Florio; commonly moder

A vast meaning is unfolded in each line, with such power that a sentence only a line long would suffice for a whole life’s training. – Rufinus (translated from Latin), about The Sentences of Sextus

[T]he governess… looked upon him [Mr. Swiveller] as a literary gentleman of eccentric habits, and of a most prodigious talent in quotation. – Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop, 1841

A profusion of fancies and quotations is out of place in a love-letter. True feeling is always direct, and never deviates into by-ways to cull flowers of rhetoric. – Christian Nestell Bovee, Intuitions and Summaries of Thought: Vol.II, 1862