In anticipation of my soon-to-be-published rhetoric text, Fitting Words, I have decided to post each Monday my favorite commonplaces, scrounged and solicited over the past twenty years of teaching rhetoric. Each post will include two or three quotes on a given topic.

It is fitting that the topic of this first post be commonplaces about commonplaces.

“I always have a quotation for everything – it saves original thinking.” – Dorothy Sayers

“If you can’t write your message in a sentence, you can’t say it in an hour.” – Dianna Booker

“Un bon mot ne prouve rien.” [“A witty saying proves nothing”] – Voltaire