Isaac D'Israeli on quotations

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations.

The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotations.

It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us.

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

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882May 1849