The reader, however, is warned not to be too sure that the author of any quotation had in mind the subject to which it is applied here. – Katharine B. Wood, “Preface,” Quotations for Occasions, 1896 [Confessional discl

Many of the historical proverbs have a doubtful paternity. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Quotation and Originality,” Letters and Social Aims, 1876

You could compile, I should think, the worst book in the world entirely out of selecting passages from the best writers in the world. – G.K. Chesterton, “On Writing Badly”

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