…though many a gatherer has carried his basket through these diamond districts of the mind… – William Rounseville Alger, “The Utility and the Futility of Aphorisms,” The Atla

[B]ut in literature, it should be remembered, a thing always becomes his at last who says it best, and thus makes it his own. – James Russell Lowell

Only roam on, therefore, all fearless, in the many garden of romantic chivalrous poesy, which drawing within its circle all that is glorious and inspiring, gave itself but little concern as to where its flowers originally grew. – C.O. Müller (Karl Otfried Müller), Introduction to a Scientific System