Each of the numbered quotes is missing all but the first letter of most of its words. The first step is to figure out what the quote is and who said it. The puzzle's title suggests that authors' last names are important, and indeed the letters of those names fit exactly in the blanks following each quote.

• ``I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.'' -- Nathan HAle
• ``Take my wife, please.'' -- Henny YoungMan
• ``Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!'' -- David FarrAgut
• ``A penny saved is a penny earned.'' -- Benjamin FrankliN
• ``I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.'' -- Winston ChurchIll
• ``To thine own self be true.'' -- William Shakespeare
• ``Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.'' -- Sigmund FReud
• ``Winners never quit and quitters never win.'' -- Vince LombardI
• ``I came, I saw, I conquered.'' -- Julius Caesar
• ``Youth is wasted on the young.'' -- George Bernard SHaw

The highlighted letters form ``A man is rich'', which any quote search site (or just Google) will tell you is part of the following famous quote:

    ``A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.'' -- Henry David Thoreau

Since the puzzle concerns identifying the authors of quotes, the final answer is the author: THOREAU.