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This paper seeks to describe and interpret the pervasive practice of quoting in Emerson’s essays. The focus is on the early texts, and although the aim is not to identify the often hidden sources, various corpuses are addressed (the Bible, German and English poets, and Emerson’s own journals, the origin of much self-quotation). Emerson’s relentless quoting is shown to be not only in accordance with the Romantic self-consciousness of literature, or with traditional rhetorical requirements of authority and variety, but also, more fundamentally and quite paradoxically, with the philosophy of self-reliance. For the Emersonian, nonconformist “scholar”, quoting does not amount to obedience, but expresses unison with truths uttered in the past: echoing the voices of other ages is a way of finding one’s own.