“What then? Shall I not follow in the footsteps of my predecessors? I shall indeed use the old road, but if I find one that makes a shorter cut and is smoother to travel, I shall open the new road. Men who have made these discoveries before us are not our masters, but our guides. Truth lies open for all; it has not yet been monopolized. And there is plenty of it left even for posterity to discover.”
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XXXIII
Original
Quid ergo? non ibo per priorum vestigia? ego vero utar via vetere, sed si propiorem planioremque invenero, hanc muniam. Qui ante nos ista moverunt non domini nostri sed duces sunt. Patet omnibus veritas; nondum est occupata; multum ex illa etiam futuris relictum est.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Seneca the Younger 225
Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist -4–65 BCRelated quotes
“Before I traveled my road I was my road.”
Antes de recorrer mi camino yo era mi camino.
Voces (1943)

BBC broadcast (16 November 1934) on German rearmament, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 566
The 1930s

Source: Pendragon Before The War: Book Two Of The Travelers (Pendragon

Source: Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), Are we still of any use?, p. 16

“All this is unauthenticated, and I shall leave it open.”
Source: Germania (98), Chapter 46 (last text line)

“When I am dead and opened, you shall find Calais lying in my head.”
Said during her final illness, referring to England's loss of Calais to France.
Raphael Holinshed, The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, vol. III, page 1160 (1587).