If this were true how would anyone ever get the first citation?

I think that you can cite it if you really think that it's good (and perhaps this is what Zed meant by "if you must"), but you'd better be citing something more widely accepted too. Then if lots of people think that it's really good, it will join the canon of widely cited papers.

Also, people outside of the publish-or-perish framework (respected elders, hobbyists outside of the research track, grad students in some fields) can get the ball rolling.