Michel de Montaigne Quotes

Never hesitate to steal a good idea.

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

Somebody told me long ago that in acting, it's okay to steal, just steal from the best.

Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.

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

Although there's no one I really pattern my game after, I am a firm believer in stealing stuff from other people.

Our originality shows itself most strikingly not in what we wholly originate but in what we do with that which we borrow from others.

A big talent steals, a small talent borrows.

Authors from whom others steal should not complain, but rejoice. Where there is no game there are no poachers.

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

If you've done a brilliant version it becomes something else.

Originality is undetected plagiarism.

Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.

Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.

Design is the courage and brilliance to cover an original and make it different.

Good artists copy, great artists steal.

Most of us don't invent ideas. We take the best ideas from someone else.

Blake is damned good to steal from.

Even if I play a similar role to one I've played before, I will never play it the same, I'll always try to do something different with it.

It's a new game now, you know, you have to bring some fresh stuff.

You're creating new things in movies and people are going to steal them.

I got everything from someone. Nobody can be original.

If we steal thoughts from the moderns, it will be cried down as plagiarism; if from the ancients, it will be cried up as erudition.

That is why the analogy of stealing does not work. With a thief, we want to know how much money he stole, and from whom. With the artist it is not how much he took and from whom, but what he did with it.

A good composer does not imitate; he steals.