Quotes about copy

A collection of quotes on the topic of copy, copying, doing, other.

Quotes about copy

Amos Oz photo
Berenice Abbott photo
Pablo Picasso photo

“Bad artists copy. Good 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
Variant: Good artists copy, great artists steal.

Marcus Garvey photo

“We were the first Fascists, when we had 100,000 disciplined men, and were training children, Mussolini was still an unknown. Mussolini copied our Fascism.”

Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) Jamaica-born British political activist, Pan-Africanist, orator, and entrepreneur

1937 interview reported by Joel A. Rogers, "Marcus Garvey," in Negroes of New York series, New York Writers Program, 1939, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York.

Billie Holiday photo

“You can't copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling. No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music.”

Variant: Everyones got to be different. You can't copy anybody and end up with anything. If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling. And without feeling, whatever you do amounts to nothing.
Source: Lady Sings the Blues

Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“He who can copy can do.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
Eoin Colfer photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Louisa May Alcott photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“The painter who draws merely by practice and by eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies every thing placed in front of it without being conscious of their existence.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting

Henri Barbusse photo
Gabriele Münter photo

“After a short period of agony, I took a great leap forward from copying nature, in a more or less impressionist style, to feeling the content of things.”

Gabriele Münter (1877–1962) German painter

as quoted in the text of the exhibition 'Kandinsky and der Blaue Reiter', Gemeentemuseum the Hague, Netherlands; February-June, 2010
Gabriele refers to the big change she made, before the period of her first Murnau landscape paintings (c. 1904 - 1914), when she lived and worked together with Kandinsky].

Osamu Tezuka photo
Osamu Tezuka photo

“I first followed the comics of Tagawa Suihō and Yokoyama Ryūichi. But suddenly, once I became devoted to Disney, I set out to copy and master that stuffed-animal style, eventually ending up with how I now draw.”

Osamu Tezuka (1928–1989) Japanese cartoonist and animator

Source: http://www.tcj.com/tezuka-osamu-and-american-comics/ Tezuka Osamu and American Comics

Claude Monet photo
Thomas Paine photo
Mark Twain photo

“We have taller buildings but shorter tempers; wider freeways but narrower viewpoints; we spend more but have less; we buy more but enjoy it less; we have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, yet less time; we have more degrees but less sense; more knowledge but less judgment; more experts, yet more problems; we have more gadgets but less satisfaction; more medicine, yet less wellness; we take more vitamins but see fewer results. We drink too much; smoke too much; spend too recklessly; laugh too little; drive too fast; get too angry; stay up too late; get up too tired; read too seldom; watch TV too much and pray too seldom.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values; we fly in faster planes to arrive there quicker, to do less and return sooner; we sign more contracts only to realize fewer profits; we talk too much; love too seldom and lie too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life; we've added years to life, not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor. We've conquered outer space, but not inner space; we've done larger things, but not better things; we've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul; we've split the atom, but not our prejudice; we write more, but learn less; plan more, but accomplish less; we make faster planes, but longer lines; we learned to rush, but not to wait; we have more weapons, but less peace; higher incomes, but lower morals; more parties, but less fun; more food, but less appeasement; more acquaintances, but fewer friends; more effort, but less success. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication; drive smaller cars that have bigger problems; build larger factories that produce less. We've become long on quantity, but short on quality.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men, but short character; steep in profits, but shallow relationships. These are the times of world peace, but domestic warfare; more leisure and less fun; higher postage, but slower mail; more kinds of food, but less nutrition. These are the days of two incomes, but more divorces; these quick trips, disposable diapers, cartridge living, throw-away morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies and pills that do everything from cheer, to prevent, quiet or kill. It is a time when there is much in the show window and nothing in the stock room.”

"The Paradox of Our Age"; these statements were used in World Wide Web hoaxes which attributed them to various authors including George Carlin, a teen who had witnessed the Columbine High School massacre, the Dalai Lama and Anonymous; they are quoted in "The Paradox of Our Time" at Snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/paradox.asp
Words Aptly Spoken (1995)

Stan Lee photo
Steve Hogarth photo

“I’m getting paid 10p per copy of every album I’m selling and they’re (EMI) selling it for 15 quid. That’s outrageous but it’s quite typical.”

Steve Hogarth (1956) English singer-songwriter and musician

BBC2 The Future Just Happened, 12th August 2001.

Plato photo

“Time then has come into being along with the universe, that being generated together, together they may be dissolved, should a dissolution of them ever come to pass; and it was made after the pattern of the eternal nature, that it might be as like to it as was possible. For the pattern is existent for all eternity; but the copy has been and is and shall be throughout all time continually. So then this was the plan and intent of God for the generation of time; the sun and the moon and five other stars which have the name of planets have been created for defining and preserving the numbers of time. …and a month is fulfilled when the moon, after completing her own orbit, overtakes the sun; a year, when the sun has completed his own course. But the courses of the others men have not taken into account, save a few out of many… they do not know that time arises from the wanderings of these, which are incalculable in multitude and marvellously intricate. None the less however can we observe that the perfect number of time fulfils the perfect year at the moment when the relative swiftnesses of all the eight revolutions accomplish their course together and reach their starting-point, being measured by the circle of the same and uniformly moving. In this way then and for these causes were created all such of the stars as wander through the heavens and turn about therein, in order that this universe may be most like to the perfect and ideal animal by its assimilation to the eternal being.”

Plato book Timaeus

38d–40a, as quoted by R. D. Archer-Hind, The Timaeus of Plato https://books.google.com/books?id=q2YMAAAAIAAJ (1888)
Timaeus

Ludwig Feuerbach photo

“The present age… prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, fancy to reality, the appearance to the essence… for in these days illusion only is sacred, truth profane.”

Aber freilich für diese Zeit, welche das Bild der Sache, die Kopie dem Original, die Vorstellung der Wirklichkeit, den Schein dem Wesen vorzieht … denn heilig ist ihr nur die Illusion, profan aber die Wahrheit.
Preface to Second Edition (1843)
The Essence of Christianity (1841)

Pericles photo

“Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighboring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves”

Pericles (-494–-429 BC) Greek statesman, orator, and general of Athens

2.37
History of the Peloponnesian War

John Lennon photo

“Once a thing's been done it's been done, so while this nostalgia — I mean for the '60s and '70s, you know, looking backwards for inspiration, copying the past — how's that rock 'n' roll? Do something of your own. Start something new, you know? Live your lives now. Know what I mean?”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

BBC interview, used in a Citroën ad, as quoted in "John Lennon Appearance In Car Ad Stirs Controversy" by Monica Herrera in Billboard (4 March 2010) http://www.billboard.com/column-viralvideos/john-lennon-appearance-in-car-ad-stirs-controversy-1004072693.story#/column-viralvideos/john-lennon-appearance-in-car-ad-stirs-controversy-1004072693.story. Though there has been no official dispute that he made this statement, a YouTube video has claimed that the audio used in the advertisement is not original http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipyUk5-wlFg.
Disputed

Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Roméo Dallaire photo
Pablo Picasso photo

“Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Quoted in: The Artist, Vol. 93 (1978) p. 5.
1970s

Louis Comfort Tiffany photo

“God has given us our talents, not to copy the talents of others, but rather to use our brains and imagination in order to obtain the revelation of true beauty.”

Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933) American stained glass and jewelry designer

The Art Work of Louis C. Tiffany [biography dictated to Charles de Kay] (Doubleday, Page & Co New York, 1916)

Steve Jobs photo

“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."
Misattributed

Eminem photo

“You ain't gonna sell two copies if you press a double album.”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Just Don't Give A Fuck" (Track 15).
1990s, The Slim Shady LP (1999)

John Napier photo
V.S. Naipaul photo
Sarah Vaughan photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Quote is actually from Tom Peters: The Best Corporate Strategy? None, Of Course. Chicago Tribune July 11, 1994 http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1994-07-11/business/9407110026_1_silicon-graphics-customers-richard-branson
Misattributed

Leonardo Da Vinci photo
Virginia Woolf photo
Justin Bieber photo

“I think the obsession with my hair is funny. People copy my hair. At meet and greets, people touch my hair. I don’t have any product in it.”

Justin Bieber (1994) Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

Vibe "Justin Bieber on Photo Shoots, Puberty, 2Pac & Drake" http://www.vibe.com/article/justin-bieber-photo-shoots-puberty-2pac-drake, 22 July 2010

Pablo Picasso photo
Paul Cézanne photo

“Painting from nature is not copying the object, it is realizing sensations.”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

Source: Quotes of Paul Cezanne, after 1900, Cézanne, - a Memoir with Conversations, (1897 - 1906), p. 46, in: 'What I know or have seen of his life'

Zakir Hussain (musician) photo
H.P. Lovecraft photo
Giuseppe Verdi photo

“To copy the truth can be a good thing, but to invent the truth is better, much better.”

Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) Italian composer

Copiare il vero può essere una buona cosa, ma inventare il vero è meglio, molto meglio.
Letter to Clara Maffei, October 20, 1876, cited from James P. Cassaro (ed.) Music, Libraries and the Academy (Middleton, Wisconsin: A-R Editions, 2007) p. 218; translation from the same source.

Eminem photo
Hans Arp photo

“We do not wish to copy nature. We do not want to reproduce, we want to produce. We want to produce as a plant produces a fruit and does not itself reproduce.”

Hans Arp (1886–1966) Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist

Source: 1960s, Jours effeuillés: Poèmes, essaies, souvenirs (1966), p. 183: Serge Fauchereau (1988) in Arp, p. 20 commented: 'Even though his work was nonrepresentational, Arp disapproved of the term 'abstract art' being applied to it, as he often explained with the above quote'.
Context: We do not wish to copy nature. We do not want to reproduce, we want to produce. We want to produce as a plant produces a fruit and does not itself reproduce. We want to produce directly and without meditation. As there is not the least trace of abstraction in this art, we will call it concrete art.

Desiderius Erasmus photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo

“We should freely take from every other nation whatever we can make of use, but we should adopt and develop to our own peculiar needs what we thus take, and never be content merely to copy.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Context: Four centuries and a quarter have gone by since Columbus by discovering America opened the greatest era in world history. Four centuries have passed since the Spaniards began that colonization on the main land which has resulted in the growth of the nations of Latin-America. Three centuries have passed since, with the settlements on the coasts of Virginia and Massachusetts, the real history of what is now the United States began. All this we ultimately owe to the action of an Italian seaman in the service of a Spanish King and a Spanish Queen. It is eminently fitting that one of the largest and most influential social organizations of this great republic, a republic in which the tongue is English, and the blood derived from many sources, should, in its name, commemorate the great Italian. It is eminently fitting to make an address on Americanism before this society. We of the United States need above all things to remember that, while we are by blood and culture kin to each of the nations of Europe, we are also separate from each of them. We are a new and distinct nationality. We are developing our own distinctive culture and civilization, and the worth of this civilization will largely depend upon our determination to keep it distinctively our own. Our sons and daughters should be educated here and not abroad. We should freely take from every other nation whatever we can make of use, but we should adopt and develop to our own peculiar needs what we thus take, and never be content merely to copy.

Aaron Swartz photo

“The law about what is stealing is very clear. Stealing is taking something away from someone so they cannot use it. There’s no way that making a copy of something is stealing under that definition.”

Aaron Swartz (1986–2013) computer programmer and internet-political activist

UTI interview (2004)
Context: The law about what is stealing is very clear. Stealing is taking something away from someone so they cannot use it. There’s no way that making a copy of something is stealing under that definition.
If you make a copy of something, you’ll be prosecuted for copyright infringement or something similar — not larceny (the legal term for stealing). Stealing, like piracy and intellectual property, is another one of those terms cooked up to make us think of intellectual works the same way we think of physical items. But the two are very different.
You can’t just punish people because they took away a “potential sale”. Earthquakes take away potential sales, as do libraries and rental stores and negative reviews. Competitors also take away potential sales.

Pablo Picasso photo

“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

Zakir Naik photo
Bruce Lee photo
Voltaire photo

“Thus, almost everything is imitation. The idea of The Persian Letters was taken from The Turkish Spy. Boiardo imitated Pulci, Ariosto imitated Boiardo. The most original minds borrowed from one another. Miguel de Cervantes makes his Don Quixote a fool; but pray is Orlando any other? It would puzzle one to decide whether knight errantry has been made more ridiculous by the grotesque painting of Cervantes, than by the luxuriant imagination of Ariosto. Metastasio has taken the greatest part of his operas from our French tragedies. Several English writers have copied us without saying one word of the matter. It is with books as with the fire in our hearths; we go to a neighbor to get the embers and light it when we return home, pass it on to others, and it belongs to everyone”

"Lettre XII: sur M. Pope et quelques autres poètes fameux," Lettres philosophiques (1756 edition)
Variants:
He looked on everything as imitation. The most original writers, he said, borrowed one from another. Boyardo has imitated Pulci, and Ariofio Boyardo. The instruction we find in books is like fire; we fetch it from our neighbour, kindle it as home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
Historical and Critical Memoirs of the Life and Writings of M. de Voltaire (1786) by Louis Mayeul Chaudon, p. 348
What we find in books is like the fire in our hearths. We fetch it from our neighbors, we kindle it at home, we communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
As translated in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists (2008), by James Geary, p. 373
Original: (fr) Ainsi, presque tout est imitation. L’idée des Lettres persanes est prise de celle de l’Espion turc. Le Boiardo a imité le Pulci, l’Arioste a imité le Boiardo. Les esprits les plus originaux empruntent les uns des autres. Michel Cervantes fait un fou de son don Quichotte; mais Roland est-il autre chose qu'un fou? Il serait difficile de décider si la chevalerie errante est plus tournée en ridicule par les peintures grotesques de Cervantes que par la féconde imagination de l'Arioste. Métastase a pris la plupart de ses opéras dans nos tragédies françaises. Plusieurs auteurs anglais nous ont copiés, et n'en ont rien dit. Il en est des livres comme du feu de nos foyers; on va prendre ce feu chez son voisin, on l’allume chez soi, on le communique à d’autres, et il appartient à tous.

Jack Ma photo

“You should learn from your competitor, but never copy. Copy and you die.”

Jack Ma (1964) Chinese businessman

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/05/business/worldbusiness/05iht-wbspot06.4109874.html, Spotlight: Jack Ma, co-founder of Alibaba.com - Business - International Herald Tribune, by SONIA KOLESNIKOV-JESSOPJAN. 5, 2007 (The New York Times)

“when I listen to Iranian songs, it's like all of these daily releases are made by 1 guy, it is funny when all singers and artists wanna copy another one, it will kill the creativity forever.”

Big Mori (1996) Iranian rapper and athlete

Source: Skeletaa website https://www.skeletaa.com/post/big-mori-iranian-music-industry-needs-to-be-more-creative interview had done by Jack Sancho, 19 March 2021
Source: Rokna News https://www.rokna.net/%D8%A8%D8%AE%D8%B4-%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%B2%D8%B4%DB%8C-8/673017-%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%AA%D8%B6%DB%8C-%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AF%DB%8C-%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%AF-%D9%87%D8%B2%D8%A7%D8%B1-%DA%86%D9%87%D8%B1%D9%87-%D9%BE%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%B4-%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%85-%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%AA%D9%84%D9%81%DB%8C%D9%82-%D9%87%D9%86%D8%B1-%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%B2%D8%B4-%D8%A8%D8%A7-%DA%86%D8%A7%D8%B4%D9%86%DB%8C-%D9%86%D9%88%DB%8C%D8%B3%D9%86%D8%AF%DA%AF%DB%8C-%D9%81%DB%8C%D9%84%D9%85

Rick Riordan photo
Jacqueline Susann photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Ngaio Marsh photo

“Above all things -- read. Read the great stylists who cannot be copied rather than the successful writers who must not be copied.”

Ngaio Marsh (1895–1982) New Zealand writer

Source: Death on the Air and Other Stories

Azar Nafisi photo
Milan Kundera photo
Rick Riordan photo
Jasper Fforde photo
Yogi Berra photo

“If you can't imitate him, don't copy him.”

Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American baseball player, manager, coach

What Time Is It? You Mean Now?: Advice for Life from the Zennest Master of Them All, Simon and Schuster, 2003, ISBN 0743244532, p. 15
Yogiisms

Walter Isaacson photo
Norman Vincent Peale photo
Graham Chapman photo
Anatole France photo

“When a thing has been said and well said, have no scruple: take it and copy it.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

Quand une chose a été dite et bien dite, n'ayez aucun scrupule, prenez-la, copiez.
As quoted in Anatole France en pantoufles by Jean-Jacques Brousson (1924); published in English as Anatole France Himself: A Boswellian Record by His Secretary, Jean-Jacques Brousson (1925), trans. John Pollock [Read Books, 2007, ISBN 1-406-75172-3], p. 56

Quentin Crisp photo
Rick Riordan photo
Thomas Jefferson photo

“Let us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to a Mr. Hazard (18 February 1791) published in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1853), Vol. 2, edited by Henry Augustine Washington, p. 211
1790s
Context: I learn with great satisfaction that you are about committing to the press the valuable historical and State papers you have been so long collecting. Time and accident are committing daily havoc on the originals deposited in our public offices. The late war has done the work of centuries in this business. The last cannot be recovered, but let us save what remains; not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident.

Jimi Hendrix photo
Richelle Mead photo
Dorothy Parker photo

“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

From a review of the revised edition of “The Elements of Style” by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White published in Esquire, November 1959.

Jean Cocteau photo

“An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

Le Coq et l’Arlequin (1918)

Woody Allen photo

“Honey! Bring down a copy of my will - and an eraser!”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician
Robert A. Heinlein photo
Alexis De Tocqueville photo

“History, it is easily perceived, is a picture-gallery containing a host of copies and very few originals.”

Original text: On voit que l'histoire est une galerie de tableaux où il y a peu d'originaux et beaucoup de copies.
Variant translation: History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.
Old Regime (1856), p. 88 http://books.google.com/books?id=N50aibeL8BAC&pg=PA88&vq=%22history,+it+is+easily+perceived%22&source=gbs_search_r&cad=1_1
1850s and later

Chuck Palahniuk photo
Steve Jobs photo
Kevin Kelly photo

“All items that can be copied, both tangible and intangible, adhere to the law of inverted pricing and become cheaper as they improve.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo

“He had a head which statuaries loved to copy, and a foot the deformity of which the beggars in the streets mimicked.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

On Moore’s Life of Lord Byron (1830)

Will Eisner photo

“Maurice Joly: Your honor, I have not written a lampoon here…this book’s delineations are applicable to all governments!
Prosecutor: No, your honor.. this man has written a tract that barely conceals a horrid defamation of our emperor!!
Maurice Joly: No! No! No! This book provides a call to conscience…a perspective for citizens concerned about the harsh realities of the conditions in which they live…
Furthermore, my book shows how the despotism taught by Machiavelli in “The Prince” could, by artifice and evil ways, impose itself on our society.
Prosecutor: No, your honor. It does more than that… for by ‘’’using’’’ the despotism of Machiavelli’’’ asa comparison, Joly seeks to show that Bonaparte, our sovereign, and an evil Italian are ‘’’the same’’’ in thought and deed!
Maurice Joly: If the reader sees a relationship to the infamy of the emperor, am I to blame?
Judge: Maurice Joly, I charge you with the crime of defamation! Of suggesting through shameful means that our sovereign has led the public astray, degraded our nation and corrupted our morals! This is an infamy, sir!!
Judge: Therefore, Maurice Joly, this court sentences you to 15 months imprisonment.
Maurice Joly: This is unfair and an example of this despotic society under Louis Bonaparte!
Balif: Quiet! You’ve had your say!
Judge: The emperor’s police will immediately confiscate all copies of this book they can find!”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), pp.16-19

Willem Roelofs photo

“.. and then it remains you to re-create your study, the fragment, into a painting. For remember; these are two [different] things: Nature is the material from which we must take. But don't be fooled by the modern theories, that imitating, copying nature would be 'everything'. The goal, the Art's aim is …. to move..”

Willem Roelofs (1822–1897) Dutch painter and entomologist (1822-1897)

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
(original Dutch: citaat van Willem Roelofs, in het Nederlands:) ..en dan blijft u over, om de studie, het fragment, tot schilderij te herscheppen. Want vergeet niet, dat dat twee [verschillende] dingen zijn: De natuur is de stof, waaruit wij moeten putten. Maar laat u niet door de moderne (Jeltes: hij bedoelde hier waarschijnlijk de Belgische neo-impressionistische) theoriën wijsmaken, dat het navolgen, het copieeren der natuur 'alles' is. Het doel, het streven van de Kunst is.. ..te ontroeren..
Quote of Roelofs, in a letter to his pupil Frans Smissaert, 8 June 1886; as cited in Willem Roelofs (1822—1922), by Mr. H. F. W. Jeltes, in Maandschrift Elsevierweekblad... http://maandschrift.elsevierweekblad.nl/EGM/1922/01/19220101/EGM-19220101-0268/story.pdf, Jan. 1922, p. 222
1880's

Grant Morrison photo
David Weber photo
Steve Jobs photo
Hans Arp photo

“The last book, the one on the bottom, was a copy of the 1,500-page Gray’s Anatomy. The weight was all wrong in her hands. She opened the cover, revealing a space hollowed out with surgical precision.”

Lis Wiehl (1961) American legal scholar

Source: Heart of Ice A Triple Threat Novel with April Henry (Thomas Nelson), p. 130

Babe Ruth photo

“I copied Jackson's style because I thought he was the greatest hitter I had ever seen, the greatest natural hitter I ever saw. He's the guy who made me a hitter.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

On Shoeless Joe Jackson, as quoted in Joe Jackson: A Biography (2004) by Kelly Boyer Sagert