I pick my favourite quotations and store them in my mind as ready armour, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle read more

I pick my favourite quotations and store them in my mind as ready armour, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence.

I do not say a proverb is amiss when aptly and reasonably applied, but to be forever discharging them, right read more

I do not say a proverb is amiss when aptly and reasonably applied, but to be forever discharging them, right or wrong, hit or miss, renders conversation insipid and vulgar.

A quotation in a speech, article or book is like a rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks read more

A quotation in a speech, article or book is like a rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks with authority.

To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for.

To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for.

He that tries to recommend (Shakespeare) by select quotations, will succeed like the pedant in "Hierocles", who, when he offered read more

He that tries to recommend (Shakespeare) by select quotations, will succeed like the pedant in "Hierocles", who, when he offered his house to sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen

By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.

By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

Every man is a borrower and a mimic, life is theatrical and literature a quotation

Every man is a borrower and a mimic, life is theatrical and literature a quotation

Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap read more

Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost; that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind.