Our admiration for poetry diminishes if we despise too many poets. For poetry is written by poets. And those who claim to love poetry are often only capable of plagiarizing this or that poet.
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A little tact causes promiscuity to flee. What binds us to another must be sacrificed. We must however patiently tolerate those parasites that no degree of hygiene can eliminate.
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Of course, all artists of note are already influenced or susceptible to being so, even the greatest. Influenced by what they love and even, in reaction, by what they detest. But, between conscious influences, which are acceptable as they depend on the free and fatal play of our faculties, and plagiarism, the difference is as vast as between expanding one’s knowledge by reading a book and stealing a book from someone’s personal library in order to sell it. Thus, influence appears to depend upon the artist’s temperament and plagiarism upon an individual’s incivility. The one involves talent alone, the other integrity.
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Conceited are those who never admit what they owe to others and blind those who do not see what they have taken from others. It is necessary to acknowledge that we, ourselves, owe others and should only complain about blatant theft. Though a debt must be repaid, rarely does a thief have the will or ability to do so.
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Plagiarism occurs when uninspired; influence happens unconsciously, by channeling, it is not dishonest.