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S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.

Invention

Invention is a kind of muse, which, being possessed of the other advantages common to her sisters, and being warmed by the fire of Apollo, is raised higher than the rest.

Whatever praises may be given to works of judgment, there is not even a single beauty in them to which the invention must not contribute.

Alexander Pope.

Invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory. Nothing can be made of nothing: he who has laid up no materials can produce no combinations.

Sir Joshua Reynolds.

It appears, therefore, that improvements in the arts are properly called inventions.

Dugald Stewart.