“Great poets are great copy editors.”
Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman
Life Is Poetry http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/life-is-poetry/ <br class="br">From the poems written in English
Source: An Essay on Aristocratic Radicalism (1889), p. 20
“Great poets are great copy editors.”
Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman
Life Is Poetry http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/life-is-poetry/ <br class="br">From the poems written in English
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Nobel Address (1991)
Context: I began my book about perestroika and the new thinking with the following words: "We want to be understood". After a while I felt that it was already happening. But now I would like once again to repeat those words here, from this world rostrum. Because to understand us really — to understand so as to believe us — proved to be not at all easy, owing to the immensity of the changes under way in our country. Their magnitude and character are such as to require in-depth analysis. Applying conventional wisdom to perestroika is unproductive. It is also futile and dangerous to set conditions, to say: We'll understand and believe you, as soon as you, the Soviet Union, come completely to resemble "us", the West.
No one is in a position to describe in detail what perestroika will finally produce. But it would certainly be a self-delusion to expect that perestroika will produce "a copy" of anything.
Nina Paley (1968) US animator, cartoonist and free culture activist
"Copying Is Not Theft - let the re-recording begin! (15 December 2009) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djVaJN0f0VQ ; also quoted in "Calling All Musicians: Can You Arrange This Song?" at QuestionCopyright.org http://questioncopyright.org/copying_isnt_theft · "We Are Creators Too: Nina Paley " (2009) — introduced by Paley singing a variant of the first stanza of her song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uN7upUXSFk · "Copying Is Not Theft - Official Version" (1 April 2010) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4 <br class="br">Context: Copying is not theft<br>Stealing a thing leaves one less left<br>Copying it makes one thing more<br>That's what copying's for.<br>Copying isn't theft<br>If I copy yours, you have it too<br>One for me and one for you<br>That's what copies can do.<br>If I steal your bicycle,<br>You have to take the bus<br>But if I just copy it,<br>There's one for each of us!<br>Making more of a thing<br>That is what we call copying<br>Sharing ideas with everyone<br>That's why copying...<br>... Is fun!
William Burges (1827–1881) English architect
William Burges "Art and Religion", in: The Church and the World: Essays on Questions of the Day, Orby Shipley ed., London, 1868, pp. 574-98; As cited in: John Pemble. Venice rediscovered. Clarendon Press, 16 mrt. 1995. p. 133
“Good artists copy; great artists steal.”
Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.
This is a favorite phrase of Jobs, but he is (mis)quoting Pablo Picasso. "Lesser artists borrow; great artists steal" is similarly attributed to Igor Stravinsky, but both sayings may well originate in T. S. Eliot's dictum http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Sacred_Wood/Philip_Massinger: "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn." <br class="br">Misattributed
“Good artists copy, great artists steal.”
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer
Compare: "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal." T. S. Eliot, in Philip Massinger, in The Sacred Wood (1920)
Disputed
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor
Attributed to Auguste Rodin by Isadora Duncan, As quoted in Modern Dancing and Dancers (1912) by John Ernest Crawford Flitch, p. 105.
1900s-1940s
“The great question is: from which country shall we copy the Constitution?”
Lima Barreto book Os Bruzundangas
Os Bruzundangas (1923)
Ma Huateng (1971) Chinese internet entrepreneur
"A mysterious message millionaire" in China Daily (12 January 2009) http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2009-01/12/content_7388202.htm