When a man thinks happily, he finds no foot-track in the field he traverses. All spontaneous thought is irrespective of all else. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Quotation and Originality,” Letters and Social Aims, 1876

A writer can get into a vast deal of trouble through misquotation. If you ever want to receive lots of mail, I recommend you get a Shakespeare quote wrong in a magazine or newspaper.” – Joseph Epstein, Foreward to Fred Shapiro’s Yale Book of Quotations, 2006

A case which commonly happens with us in London, as well as our Neighbours in Paris, where if a Witty Man starts a happy thought, a Million of sordid Imitators ride it to death. – Thomas Brown, Laconics: Or, New Maxims of State and Conversation