“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

Source: Intuitions and Summaries of Thought (1862), Volume II, p. 124.

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Christian Nestell Bovee 21

American writer 1820–1904

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“The next thing to saying a good thing yourself, is to quote one”

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This sentence has no known source in Emerson's works, but its general sense does closely match the tenor of Emerson's essay "Quotation and Originality", in particular the sentence "Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it." (listed above).
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Letter to Voltaire, as quoted in Short Sayings of Great Men : With Historical and Explanatory Notes (1882) by Samuel Arthur Bent, and Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1922) revised and enlarged by Kate Loise Roberts