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<font size=3>Reminds me of "to copy from one person is plagiarism;
to copy from many is research".<br><br>
From Garson's description, I surmise that the Gentleman's Magazine
article addresses the issues of and distinctions between imitation,
copying, and stealing, where beliefs and ethics have varied over
time.<br><br>
Joel<br><br>
At 3/6/2013 03:19 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Steve Jobs endorsed a popular
and controversial aphorism about the<br>
process of innovation that he attributed to Pablo Picasso:<br><br>
Good artists copy; great artists steal.<br><br>
There were multi-million dollar lawsuits between Apple, Microsoft,
and<br>
Xerox hinging on the originality of the graphical user interface of<br>
the Macintosh operating system (OS), the Microsoft Windows OS, and
the<br>
Xerox Star OS (and research prototypes). So, the comment of Jobs was<br>
especially provocative.<br><br>
I have not found any evidence for assigning the adage to Picasso.<br>
Perhaps he said it in Spanish and it did not make it into English
for<br>
many years. Or perhaps Jobs was confused. Help on this question
would<br>
be welcome.<br><br>
I located a precursor to the maxim in an article titled "Imitators
and<br>
Plagiarists" published in The Gentleman's Magazine in 1892. The
author<br>
was W. H. Davenport Adams, and the terminology he used was
transposed:<br>
"to imitate" was commendable, but "to steal" was
unworthy. Adams<br>
extolled the works of the famed poet Alfred Tennyson, and presented<br>
several examples in which Tennyson constructed his verses using the<br>
efforts of his artistic antecedents as a resource. In the following<br>
passage Adams referred to his aphorism as a "canon", and he
placed it<br>
between quotation marks.<br><br>
[ref] 1892 June, The Gentleman's Magazine, Volume 272, Imitators and<br>
Plagiarists (Part 2 of 2) by W. H. Davenport Adams, Start Page 613,<br>
Quote Page 627 and 628, Published by Chatto & Windus,
Piccadilly,<br>
London. (Google Books full view) link [/ref]<br><br>
<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=5w34DT0fdeUC&q=%22ones+steal%22#v=snippet" eudora="autourl">
http://books.google.com/books?id=5w34DT0fdeUC&q=%22ones+steal%22#v=snippet</a>
&<br><br>
[Begin excerpt]<br>
Of Tennyson's assimilative method, when he adopts an image or a<br>
suggestion from a predecessor, and works it up into his own
glittering<br>
fabric, I shall give a few instances, offering as the result and<br>
summing up of the preceding inquiries a modest canon: "That
great<br>
poets imitate and improve, whereas small ones steal and spoil."<br>
[End excerpt]<br><br>
Different versions of the saying were employed by (or attributed to)<br>
T. S. Eliot, Lionel Trilling, Igor Stravinsky, and William Faulkner.<br>
There is a post on the Quote Investigator website on this topic:<br><br>
<a href="http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/06/artists-steal/" eudora="autourl">
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/06/artists-steal/</a><br><br>
Relevant cites before 1892 would be interesting to me. Evidence that<br>
Picasso used the expression would be interesting. Jobs used the
adage<br>
in April 1988. Earlier instances by Jobs would interest me.<br><br>
Thanks for reading,<br>
Garson<br><br>
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http://www.americandialect.org</a></font></blockquote></body>
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