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Home  »  Familiar Quotations  »  6327 Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882 John Bartlett

John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.

6327 Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882 John Bartlett

 
NUMBER:6327
AUTHOR:Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
QUOTATION:  Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it. 1 
ATTRIBUTION:Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.
 
Note 1.
There is not less wit nor less invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought. Cardinal du Perron has been heard to say that the happy application of a verse of Virgil has deserved a talent.—Bayle: vol. ii. p. 779.
  Though old the thought and oft exprest,
  ’T is his at last who says it best.
    Lowell: For an Autograph. [back]