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As regards the meaning now given to the saying, Seneca claimed the same right to borrow at will. Quidquid bene dictum est ab ullo, meum est (Ep. XVI). After advising his reader to consider the Epistle carefully and see what value it had for him, he says, “You need not be surprised if I am still free with other people’s property. But why do I say ‘other people’s property’? Whatever has been well said by anyone belongs to me.”[13]

So also the late Samuel Butler said, “Appropriate things are meant to be appropriated.”

Our finest hope is finest memory,

As they who love in age think youth is blest

Because it has a life to fill with love.

George Eliot (A Minor Poet).

The disposition to judge every enterprise by its event, and believe in no wisdom that is not endorsed by success, is apt to grow upon us with years, till we sympathize with nothing for which we cannot take out a policy of assurance.

James Martineau (Hours of Thought I, 87).

If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begin upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time.