Sunday, November 10, 2013
Parrots
Paul Ponder, Noctes Atticae, or Reveries in a Garret; Containing Short, and Chiefly Original, Observations on Men and Books (Bath: Richard Cruttwell, 1825), p. 105:
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Great Quoters.Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals (May 1849):
These borrowings from the wit and learning of other men are entertaining to a company, if the quoters do not too much presume on their memories; or else their scraps proclaim them mere parrots in literature, and instead of men rich in learned ore, shew themselves to be mendicants. The line which Dr. Young so wittily applied to proud and degenerate nobles, may be applied to these usurpers of learning, who are not scholars in their own right, and who
Bring in their bills, instead of their discharge.
I hate quotation. Tell me what you know.
