[T]here are aphorisms that, like airplanes, stay up only while they are in motion. – Vladimir Nabokov, The Gift, 1963, translated from Russian by Michael Scammell

…I didn’t do anything that can properly be called research; rather, I proceeded by the methodless method of “determined browsing”— – Rudolf Flesch, on collecting excerpts for The Book of Unusual Quotations, 1957

Proverbs were bright shafts in the Greek and Latin quivers… – Isaac D’Israeli, “The Philosophy of Proverbs,” Curiosities of Literature,

But, perhaps, the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some obvious and useful truth in a few words. – Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, November 19, 1751