The next best thing to being clever is being able to quote someone who is.

The earliest located appearance is in Mary Pettibone Poole’s 1938 quotation collection “A Glass Eye at a Keyhole.” Because the book mixes sayings already in circulation with items Poole may have created, later editors and compilers have tended to credit her, and no earlier instance has been identified in the provided material.

The line jokes that if you can’t produce a witty thought yourself, a close substitute is to borrow wit by quoting someone else. It’s a self-aware comment about how quoting can function as a shortcut to sounding smart.

The next best thing to being clever is being able to quote some one who is.