Whitehead said, “Everything of importance has been said before by someone who did not discover it.”

I know Whitehead said this because J. Samuel Preus quotes him in an article about Spinoza.  That’s not quite right, though: Preus doesn’t quote Whitehead, but quotes a quotation from Whitehead in a book by Robert Merton.  And now here I am quoting a quotation of a quotation of a quotation (I think that covers it, but I’m dizzy).

Kinda confirms Whitehead’s point, which he probably learned from someone else anyway.