Then your words of abuse today may turn into a universally valid principle of denigration, for words are magical formulae. They leave fingermarks behind on the brain, which in the twinkling of an eye becomes the footprints of history. One ought to watch one’s every word. – Franz Kafka, quoted by Gustav Janouch, Conversations with Kafka

You complain, Velox, that the epigrams which I write are long. You yourself write nothing; your attempts are shorter. – Marcus Valerius Martialis, translated from Latin

Oh, to say something so fine, so memorable, that it carries across time, oceans, and languages! – Willis Goth Regier, Quotology, 2010