My favorite of the latter is The International Thesaurus of Quotations , which has a high quotient of the provocative. Quotes I like are based on their thought content, felicity of expression, insight, and wit. I have included a brief sample of my own choices. The way in which a new scientific truth usually becomes accepted is not that its opponents are persuaded and declare themselves enlightened, but rather, that its opponents gradually die off and the following generation grows up accepting the truth from the start. An artist doesn't live in some geographical abstraction, superimposed on a part of this beautiful earth. . .
Most men make little use of their speech than to give evidence against their own understanding.
Johnson, Idler no. 8.