About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment.
They lard their lean books with the fat of others work.
And for the citation of so many authors, 'tis the easiest thing in nature. Find out one of these books with an alphabetical index, and without any farther ceremony, remove it verbatim into your own... there are fools enough to be thus drawn into an opinion of the work; at least, such a flourishing train of attendants will give your book a fashionable air, and recommend it for sale.
Plagiarists are always suspicious of being stolen from.
Ideas improve. The meaning of words participates in the improvement. Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It embraces an author's phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a false idea, and replaces it with the right idea.
Plagiarists at least have the quality of preservation.
Perish those who said our good things before we did.
— Donatus
He invades authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him.
Nothing is new except arrangement.
Genius Borrows nobly.
When a thing has been said and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.
There is much difference between imitating a man and counterfeiting him.
What is originality? Undetected plagiarism.
They castrate the books of other men in order that with the fat of their works they may lard their own lean volumes.
— Jovius
I don't think anybody steals anything; all of us borrow.
Stealing things is a glorious occupation, particularly in the art world.
If you steal from one author, it's plagiarism; if you steal from many, it's research.
Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research.
Taking something from one man and making it worse is plagiarism.
Most writers steal a good thing when they can, and when 'Tis safely got 'Tis worth the winning. The worst of 't is we now and then detect em, they ever dream that we suspect em.
The human plagiarism which is most difficult to avoid, for individuals... is the plagiarism of ourselves.
Nothing is said which has not been said before.
— Terence
So much of what I am I got from you. I had no idea how much of it was secondhand.
The immature artist imitates. The mature artist steals.
Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal.
What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing, he knew nobody had said it before.