Oh, dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was that “plagiarism” farce! As if there was much of anything in any human utterance, oral or written, except plagiarism! The kernel, the soul—let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances—is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily use by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing.
From the wonderful Letters of Note.
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May 18, 2012 at 12:35 am
Bumba
What would Mark Twain have to say about “cut and paste”?
Probably very little being dead and all.
May 18, 2012 at 3:11 pm
k
“…the little discoloration … revealed in characteristics of phrasing.”
May 27, 2012 at 6:15 pm
WillJ
You should have posted this without attributing it to Mark Twain.