Steve Jobs: Good artists copy, great artists steal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6jeZ7m0ycw

One of the surest of tests is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest.

(DeepL)その確かな証のひとつが、詩人の借用の仕方である。未熟な詩人は真似をし、成熟した詩人は盗む。悪い詩人は盗んだものを汚し、良い詩人はそれをより良いもの、あるいは少なくとも何か違うものに作り上げる。良い詩人は盗んだものを、ユニークで、引き裂かれたものとは全く異なる感情の全体へと溶接し、悪い詩人はそれを何のまとまりもないものへと投げ込んでしまう。良い詩人は、通常、時間的に離れた作家、言語的に異質な作家、あるいは関心事に多様な作家から借用する。