C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Aphorism
Collect as pearls the words of the wise and virtuous.
An epigram often flashes light into regions where reason shines but dimly.
Books are the beehives of thought; laconics the honey taken from them.
Exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms; and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism.
I fancy mankind may come in time to write all aphoristically, except in narration; grow weary of preparation and connection and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made.
If these little sparks of holy fire which I have thus heaped up together do not give life to your prepared and already enkindled spirit, yet they will sometimes help to entertain a thought, to actuate a passion, to employ and hallow a fancy.