We are as much informed of a writer’s genius by what he selects as by what he originates. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Quotation and Originality,” Letters and Social Aims, 1876

We sometimes think of quotations as extracts from larger texts, but some quotations originated complete unto themselves. – Gary Saul Morson, The Words of Others: From Quotations to Culture, 2011

Maxims are texts to which we turn in danger or sorrow, and we often find what seems to have been expressly written for our use. – Attributed to George Eliot in Sayings: Proverbs, Maxims, Mottoes by Charles F. S

Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests and mines and stone quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Plato; Or, The Philosopher”