Don’t quote me

A classmate asked me if he should reference a famous quote he used in his paper. This was my response:

That one is tough…I used a popular quote once and went through a maze looking for the original source. Now I don’t remember if it was required or not? I’d say if you reference it…it won’t hurt your grade, but if you don’t reference it and it hurts your grade, that’s pretty ridiculous and petty if you ask me…

…My quote was something everybody knows and I think it came from some philosopher in the Dark Ages, then was used by Lincoln, who changed it a little, to a bunch of other people. Damn, of course I can’t remember it! But I went as far back as I could to try to get the original source…funny cos it was in Old English and if someone said it in Old English today, no one would understand it. Everything but the quote is coming back to me. Anyway, I went on a tangent just to reference this damn quote for a dumb paper and now I have this dumb story to show for it….so there’s that.

I’m not sure if I answered his question.