The apothegm is the most portable form of Truth…. It is thus that the proverb answers where the sermon fails, as a well-charged pistol will do more execution than a whole barrel of gunpowder idly expended in the air. – William Gilmore Simms, Egeria: Or, Voices of Thought and Counsel for the Woods a

Whenever we would prepare the mind by a forcible appeal, an opening quotation is a symphony preluding on the chords whose tones we are about to harmonize. – Isaac D’Israeli, “Quotation,” A Second Series of Curiosities of Literature

Most anthologists of quotations are like those who eat cherries or oysters; first picking the best ones and winding up by eating everything. – Sebastian Roch Nicolas Chamfort