Austin Kleon? T. S. Eliot? C. E. M. Joad? Ecclesiastes? Anonymous?
Question for Quote Investigator: The recent creation of artificial intelligence systems that generate text, images, and videos has caused ferocious controversy and motivated several copyright lawsuits. The current generation of popular AI systems are trained using billions of webpages and billions of images.
The nature of human originality is undergoing careful scrutiny. One influential viewpoint states that every idea which appears to be new is really a mashup or a remix of previous ideas. About a decade ago I read a similar statement in a book about art and creativity. Would you please help me to find a citation?
Reply from Quote Investigator: In 2012 artist Austin Kleon published the best-seller “Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative”. The first chapter contained the following statement. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
Every new idea is just a mashup or a remix of one or more previous ideas.
Please note that this remark is about human creativity, and it does not entail any specific viewpoint about AI systems and copyright.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
Thematically related remarks have a long history. For example, the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible contained the following verse:2
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
In 1836 the English humorist Horace Smith published “The Tin Trumpet; Or, Heads and Tails, for the Wise and Waggish” under the pseudonym Paul Chatfield. A section of the book about originality began with a pithy definition:3
ORIGINALITY — Unconscious or undetected imitation. Even Seneca complains, that the ancients had compelled him to borrow from them what they would have taken from him, had he been lucky enough to have preceded them.
There is a Quote Investigator article about this family of sayings with the title “Quote Origin: Originality Is Undetected Plagiarism” located here.
In 1892 the English writer W. H. Davenport Adams published an article titled “Imitators and Plagiarists” in “The Gentleman’s Magazine”. He suggested that poets found inspiration in the works of previous artists:4
. . . a modest canon: “That great poets imitate and improve, whereas small ones steal and spoil.”
In 1920 the major poet T. S. Eliot published “The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism”, and he presented a different version of this insight:5
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.
There is a Quote Investigator article about this family of sayings with the title “Quote Origin: Good Artists Copy; Great Artists Steal” located here.
In 1926 English commentator and broadcaster C. E. M. Joad published “The Babbitt Warren” which contained the following statement:6
Whereas in Europe the height of originality is genius, in America the height of originality is skill in concealing origins.
In 1933 the journal “The Volta Review” printed another instance of the saying attributed to Joad. This version was not directed at any specific nationality:7
Appropriate remarks are meant to be appropriated; and originality is little more than skill in concealing origins.
—C. E. M. Joad.
There is a Quote Investigator article about this family of sayings with the title “Quote Origin: The Secret to Creativity Is Knowing How to Hide Your Sources” located here.
In 2012 Austin Kleon penned this adage for his book “Steal Like an Artist” as mentioned at the beginning of this article:8
Every new idea is just a mashup or a remix of one or more previous ideas.
Kleon also wrote the following:9
You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life. You are the sum of your influences. The German writer Goethe said, “We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.”
In conclusion, this general notion has a long history. The idea has been expressed in many ways. Austin Kleon deserves credit for the formulation which appeared in his 2012 book “Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative”.
Image Notes: Mashup of Van Gogh’s two paintings “Sunflowers” and “The Starry Night” produced by Google Gemini. The image has been resized.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to the anonymous person whose comment led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Also, thanks to Mordechai Schiller who pointed to the verse in Ecclesiastes.
Update History: On July 26, 2024 the Ecclesiastes citation was added to the article.
- 2012 Copyright, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon, Chapter 1: Steal Like an Artist, Quote Page 9, Workman Publishing Company, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- Website: BibleHub, Ecclesiastes, Chapter 1, Verse 9, Translation: New International Version (NIV), Website description: Online Bible Study Suite; Bible Hub is a production of the Online Parallel Bible Project. (Accessed BibleHub.com on July 22, 2024) link ↩︎
- 1836, The Tin Trumpet; Or, Heads and Tails, for the Wise and Waggish by Paul Chatfield (Horace Smith), Edited by Jefferson Saunders, Volume 2 of 2, Quote Page 62, Printed for Whittaker & Company, London. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1892 June, The Gentleman’s Magazine, Volume 272, Imitators and Plagiarists (Part 2 of 2) by W. H. Davenport Adams, Start Page 613, Quote Page 627 and 628, Published by Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly, London. (Google Books full view) link ↩︎
- 1920, The Sacred Wood: Essays On Poetry and Criticism by T. S. Eliot, Section: Philip Massinger, Quote Page 114, Methuen & Company Ltd., London. (Internet Archive) ↩︎
- 1926, The Babbitt Warren by C. E. M. Joad (Cyril Edwin Mitchinson Joad), Part II: Beauty: The Cultivation of Uniformity, Quote Page 81, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Company, London. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1933 June, The Volta Review, Kernels, Selected by A. H. Damon, Quote Page 278, Column 2, Volta Speech Association for the Deaf, Washington, D.C. (Verified on paper) ↩︎
- 2012 Copyright, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon, Chapter 1: Steal Like an Artist, Quote Page 9, Workman Publishing Company, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2012 Copyright, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon, Chapter 1: Steal Like an Artist, Quote Page 11, Workman Publishing Company, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎