Stolen thoughts on
stealing thoughts:
On the direction of E2:
Well,
history and
tradition testify that the
heart is just about what it was
in the beginning; it has undergone
no shade of change. Its
good and
evil impulses and their consequences are the same to-day that they were in
Old Bible times, in
Egyptian times, in
Greek times, in
Middle Age times, in
Twentieth Century times. There has been
no change.
Letter, March 14, 1905, Mark Twain's Letters
On the work of others, purloined or no:
Oh, dear me, how unspeakably
funny and owlishly
idiotic and
grotesque was that "plagiarism"
farce! As if there was much of
anything in any human
utterance, oral or written,
except
plagiarism! The
kernal, the
soul -- let us go further and say the
substance, the
bulk, the actual and valuable material of
all
human utterances -- is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas
are
second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a
million
outside sources, and daily used by the garnerer with a
pride and satisfaction born of the
superstition that he
originated them; whereas there is not a
rag of originality about
them anywhere except the little
discoloration they get from his
mental and moral
calibre and his
temperament, and which is
revealed in characteristics of
phrasing. When a great
orator
makes a great
speech you are listening to
ten centuries and ten
thousand men -- but we call it
his speech, and really some
exceedingly small portion of it
is his. But not enough to
signify. It is merely a
Waterloo. It is Wellington's battle, in
some degree, and we call it his; but there are others
that
contributed.
It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a
steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph, or a telephone or
any other important thing -- and the last man gets the
credit and
we forget the others. He added his little
mite -- that is all he
did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts
of all things that proceed from the
intellect are plagiarisms,
pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us
modest. But
nothing can do
that.
Samuel Clemens in a letter to Helen Keller, 1903
On adding the work of others, with purpose:
PLAGIARISM, n. A literary
coincidence compounded of a
discreditable
priority and an honorable
subsequence.
PLAGIARIZE,
v. To
take the thought or style of
another writer whom
one has never, never
read.
On those who fear change:
CYNIC,
n. A
blackguard whose faulty vision sees things
as they are,
not as they
ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of
plucking out a cynic's eyes to
improve his vision.
Ambrose Bierce - the Devil's Dictionary