Our debt to tradition through reading and conversation is so massive, our protest or private addition to tradition so rare and insignificant, — and this commonly on the ground of other reading and hearing, — that, in a large sense, one would say there is no pure originality. All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. By necessity, by proclivity and delight, we all quote. We quote not only books and proverbs, but arts, sciences, religions, customs and laws; nay, we quote temples and houses, tables and chairs by imitation... The originals are not original. There is imitation, model and suggestion, to the very archangels, if we knew their history.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Quotation & Originality