“By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quotation and Originality
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

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Ralph Waldo Emerson 727

American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803–1882

Avram Davidson book Masters of the Maze

Source: Masters of the Maze (1965), Chapter 4 (p. 57)

“We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise.”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

[1991Nov13.194420.28091@netlabs.com, 1991]
Usenet postings, 1991

“In quoting others, we cite ourselves.”

Julio Cortázar book Around the Day in Eighty Worlds

Source: Around the Day in Eighty Worlds

“Stop quoting laws, we carry weapons!”

Pompey (-106–-48 BC) Roman general

“Οὐ παύσεσθε,” εἶπεν, “ἡμῖν ὑπεζωσμένοις ξίφη νόμους ἀναγινώσκοντες;” Plutarch, Lives. Pompey 10.3.2. To the Mamertines in Messana, complaining about Pompey's legal jurisdiction after their city was retaken during the civil warfare. Lit.: "'Will you not give up,' he said, 'reading laws to us men girt with swords?'"
Life of Pompey

“To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection. (Note: This quote, although found in the 1985 sci-fi novel, 'Lucifer's Hammer', by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, may be erroneously attributed to Pournelle. As this quote can also be found in the Preface of Henri Poincare's "Science and Hypothesis" the 1952 Dover abridged edition)”

Jerry Pournelle book Lucifer's Hammer

Lucifer's Hammer (1985)

“For the game is everlasting only insofar as we keep returning to it for delights put into it by countless boys of all ages.”

Neville Cardus (1888–1975) English writer

Cricket (1930)

“When we can't think for ourselves, we can always quote”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

“We simply do not consider it desirable that a realm of justice and concord should be established on earth (because it would certainly be the realm of the deepest leveling and chinoiserie); we are delighted with all who love, as we do, danger, war, and adventures, who refuse to compromise, to be captured, reconciled, and castrated; we count ourselves among conquerors; we think about the necessity for new orders, also for a new slavery — for every strengthening and enhancement of the human type also involves a new kind of enslavement.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

The term chinoiserie indicates "unnecessary complication" and some translations point out that this passage invokes ideas in the concluding poem of Beyond Good and Evil: "nur wer sich wandelt bleibt mit mir verwandt" : Only those who keep changing remain akin to me.
The Gay Science (1882)

“Necessity is the mother of all invention.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

“Invention is the mother of all necessities.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

1970s, The argument: causality in the electric world (1973)

“By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.”

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