“There is not less wit nor invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought. Cardinal du Perron has been heard to say that the happy application of a verse of Virgil has deserved a talent.”

—  Pierre Bayle

Pierre Bayle, Works, Volume II, p. 779; in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 653-54: About quotation.

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French philosopher and writer 1647–1706

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