To select well among old things is almost equal to inventing new ones. – Nicolas Charles Joseph Trublet

…though many a gatherer has carried his basket through these diamond districts of the mind… – William Rounseville Alger, “The Utility and the Futility of Aphorisms,” The Atla

Nevertheless, a maxim does not necessarily become a proverb. Many grubs never grow to butterflies; and a maxim is only a proverb in its caterpillar stage—a candidate for a wider sphere and longer flight than most are destined to attain. – “Proverbs Secular and Sacred,” The North British Review, February 1858

The difference between my quotations and those of the next man is that I leave out the inverted commas. – George Moore, quoted in Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Times by Laurenc