Quotes about plagiarism

About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment.

— Josh Billings

They lard their lean books with the fat of others work.

— Sir Richard Burton

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.

— Miguel De Cervantes

Plagiarists are always suspicious of being stolen from.

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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.

— Guy Debord

Plagiarists at least have the quality of preservation.

— Benjamin Disraeli

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.

— John Dryden

Nothing is new except arrangement.

— William J. Durant

Genius Borrows nobly.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

When a thing has been said and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.

— Anatole France

There is much difference between imitating a man and counterfeiting him.

— Benjamin Franklin

What is originality? Undetected plagiarism.

— Dean William R. Inge

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.

— B. B. King

Stealing things is a glorious occupation, particularly in the art world.

— Malcolm Mclaren

If you steal from one author, it's plagiarism; if you steal from many, it's research.

— Wilson Mizner

Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research.

— Wilson Mizner

Taking something from one man and making it worse is plagiarism.

— George Moore

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.

— Bryan Waller Proctor

The human plagiarism which is most difficult to avoid, for individuals... is the plagiarism of ourselves.

— Marcel Proust

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.

— Peter Townsend

The immature artist imitates. The mature artist steals.

— Lionel Trilling

Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal.

— Lionel Trilling

What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing, he knew nobody had said it before.

— Mark Twain