Of course, it is good to carry great quotations in your head, and yet you want to have your own thoughts. Do not overdo what someone else has said or written down. What do YOU think?
When you are repeating something, no matter how wise and how much you credit the source, you are repeating. It may be a deep thought, yet you are frittering with it on the surface. Your own thinking comes from a deeper level. A copied thought, no matter how wonderful, no matter how much it has touched you, comes from the mind. Your own thinking, no matter how simply said, carries great power from your heart. Read what the Great Ones have written. Remember and integrate what they have written, and speak your own thoughts. Don't always be quoting from someone else, as if your thoughts cannot stand on their own.
You do have thoughts of your own. Thoughts belong to you. Repetition does not. What you say can support itself. Using others' great thoughts or sayings is like calling in the militia. The militia is not needed.
It is like when a child bolsters his own will by attributing it to his mother. Say rarely, "My mother said..." Say rarely, "Plato said."
I do not say to never quote. Just don't always be doing it. I am saying to acknowledge that you are intelligent. You do not need to be overly dependent on what someone else has said. It may be that you feel you have to have the last word, and so you cite an indisputable source.
You are not a lawyer who has to cite cases to prove his point.
Cite your own experience. Do not call in the big guns. You do not need props, beloveds. Your own heart is good enough. It is certainly good enough for Me.
Truly, your own words carry great substance, especially when your words come from your heart. Honest speech is very powerful. Notice how children speak from their hearts until they are taught otherwise.
You were a child once. Give yourself permission now to extol your own thinking without endorsement from outside sources.
You are not an encyclopedia that must give references. You don't need to use references. You need to speak for yourself. Even if someone has worded your thinking incredibly beautifully, less beautiful words from your own reservoir are more powerful.
The important thing is that you give credit to yourself where credit is due, overdue, long overdue.
If someone wants to know what has already been said on a subject, they can go to the library.
Come to rely on your own thinking, beloveds. Find out what you think. You may have been scampering away from your own thinking. You may have erased yourself. I suggest you introduce yourself to yourself.
You are not meant to be an automaton nor a record player.
You are a person and mind and heart in your own right. You have the right to express yourself. You can have the joy of expressing yourself. What a relief not to have to carry around others' thoughts, no matter how sensational they may be. What a lovely thing to use your own speech as it is, to say what you think and feel without having to remember what someone already said. How lovely to be a simple person who speaks a simple speech rather than being an orator. How relaxing.
What a delight to speak simply and listen simply to the heart of what others say without any folderol. How marvelous to be a simple person on Earth who calmly speaks his own thoughts and is listened to more.