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]
