At all events, the next best thing to being witty one’s self, is to be able to quote another’s wit. – Christian Nestell Bovee, “Quoters and Quoting,” Institutions and Summaries of Th

Quotation mistakes, inadvertency, expedition, and human lapses, may make not only moles but warts in learned authors… – Thomas Browne, Christian Morals, 1716 (Part the Second, sect. ii)

So our student will flit like a busy bee through the entire garden of literature, light on every blossom, collect a little nectar from each, and carry it to his hive… – Desiderius Erasmus, De Copia, 1512, translated