Steve Jobs: Good artists copy. Great artists steal.

Steve Jobs: Good artists copy. Great artists steal.(youtube.com)

4 points by printer 13 years ago | 4 comments

klaut 13 years ago |

Just to be a bit precise: that quote is actually from Picasso. His version was "bad artists copy, good artists steal"

http://www.pablopicasso.org/quotes.jsp

Piskvorrr 13 years ago |

Anyway, "stealing makes you a good artist" doesn't follow.

eikaterine 13 years ago | |

Well, not if you interpret "stealing" as "misappropriating," but I don't think the quote is quite that literal. My interpretation of it is that good artists "borrow," that is, they take elements from others but they still belong to others. Great artists, however, "steal," meaning that they take elements from others and make them their own to the point where we start identify those elements with the "thief" instead of the originator. Someone who succeeds in doing that is probably a pretty damn good artist.

Piskvorrr 13 years ago | | |

Yup, that's the most likely interpretation. What I meant was "just taking elements from others doesn't automatically make them perceived as your own".