The bees pillage the flowers here and there but they make honey of them which is all their own; it is no longer thyme or marjolaine: so the pieces borrowed from others he will transform and mix up into a work all his own.
"Essays", Book I, Chapter XXV, as quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations, p. 598-600, 1922.
![The bees pillage the flowers here and there but they make honey of them which is all their own; it is no longer thyme or marjolaine: so the pieces borrowed from others he will transform and mix up into a work all his](http://cdn.myquotes.org/images/michel-de-montaigne/the-bees-pillage-the-flowers-here-and-there-but-they-make-honey-of-them-which-is-all-their-own-it.jpg)