Quotes & Sayings About Copying Ideas

Human beings only learn by observing and copying. What does this really mean? It means that your friends will only tell you that your ideas are great once you succeed and never before that. Expecting someone's approval is a waste of time. — Robin Sacredfire

We always worry that we are copying someone else, that we don't have our own style. Don't worry. Writing is a communal act. Contrary to popular belief, a writer is not Prometheus alone on a hill full of fire. We are very arrogant to think we alone have a totally original mind. We are carried on the backs of all the writers who came before us. We live in the present with all the history, ideas, and soda pop of this time. It all gets mixed up in our writing. — Natalie Goldberg

In those cultures lacking unfamiliar challenges, external or internal, where fundamental change is unneeded, novel ideas need not be encouraged. Indeed, heresies can be declared dangerous; thinking can be rigidified; and sanctions against impermissible ideas can be enforced
all without much harm. But under varied and changing environmental or biological circumstances, simply copying the old ways no longer works. Then, a premium awaits those who, instead of blandly following tradition, or trying to foist their preferences on to the physical or social Universe, are open to what the Universe teaches. — Carl Sagan

Copying isn't particularly creative work. Being inspired by someone else's idea to produce something new and different IS creative work. — Shia Labeouf

Many of the people who we think of as lone geniuses were actually part of a whole scene of people who were supporting each other, looking at each other's work, copying from each other, stealing ideas, and contributing ideas. — Austin Kleon

The Supreme Court has crafted doctrines such as 'fair use,' which permits copying materials for criticism, parody, and transformative uses, and has ruled that abstract ideas are not subject to copyright, because courts will not punish people for merely using an abstract concept in speech. — Marvin Ammori

I was meticulously copying other art and then I realized I could just use a camera and put my time into an idea instead. — Cindy Sherman