Ralph Waldo Emerson on quotations

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.

The only way to have a friend is to be one.

What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

Oscar Wilde1854–1900De Profundis (1897)

A witty saying proves nothing.

Voltaire1694–1778Le dîner du comte de Boulainvilliers (1767): Deuxième Entretien

Adam was the only man who, when he said a good thing, knew that nobody had said it before him.

Mark Twain1835–1910