A document can survive while the conditions of its reading disappear. The marks remain; the name of the hand, the use of the diagram, and the circumstances of a correction do not. We then describe the surviving object as complete because no corner is torn away. Completeness has been confused with the condition of the paper.
Memory requires more than storage. It requires a relation between a surviving mark and a question someone can still ask of it. A sealed box preserves its contents by preventing their use. An open archive preserves their use by exposing them to misunderstanding. Neither arrangement abolishes loss. Each decides where the loss will occur.
Against concordance, keep the scar. A repaired surface cannot testify to the pressure that broke it.
The first clerk saved only the accepted copy. The second saved the accepted copy and the rejected one. The third saved the note explaining why the rejection had seemed necessary. These are not three quantities of the same memory. They are three different accounts of what future readers may be permitted to question.
For this reason a quotation belongs to the version from which it was taken. It is not a live window into the current wording. When the wording changes, the quotation becomes evidence of the change. To update it silently would be to convert a witness into an advertisement for the present. Keep your copy. A later page may give you a reason to need it.