"Plagiarism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for originality—some Poe—shrieks out, 'Some body must be a thief!' and forthwith, all along the highways of reviewdom, is sent up the hue and cry: 'Stop thief! stop thief!' For has not the law thundered from Sinai, 'Thou shalt not steal'? True, plagiarism is nowhere distinctly forbidden by Moses; but have not critics judicially pronounced it author-theft? Has not metaphor been sounded through every note of its key-board, to strike out all that is base whereunto to liken it? Have not old Dr. Johnson's ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... a greater disgust for plagiarism than myself. If I had even suspected that the idea in question was borrowed, I should have disclaimed originality, or mentioned the coincidence, as I once did in a case where I had happened to hit on an idea of Swift's.—But what shall I do about these verses I was ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... my unwillingness to imply any possible belief of mine that the preceding unrhymed narratives can enter into competition with the elaborate poems of the author of "The Earthly Paradise," yet the similarity of subjects, and the imputation of plagiarism already made in private circles, induce me to remark that "Admetus" was completed before the publication of the "Love of Alcestis," and "Tannhauser" before the "Hill ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... the astonishing success of the Pilgrim's Progress had raised a swarm of imitators, the author himself, according to the frequent fashion of the world, was accused of plagiarism, to which he made an indignant reply, in what he considered as verses, prefixed to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 469. Saturday January 1, 1831 • Various
... the culture of men they become his scholars."—"How many great men Nature is incessantly sending up out of night to be his men!—His contemporaries tax him with plagiarism.—But the inventor only knows how to borrow. When we are praising Plato, it seems we are praising quotations from Solon and Sophron and Philolaus. Be it so. Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... heart'—'calling up all' one's 'father' in one's soul—'working every nerve'—'copying a bright example'; in short, the whole play, relieved now and then with a smart sentence or turn of words. The following is a pregnant example of plagiarism and weak writing. It is from another tragedy of Addison's time—the Mariamne ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... a charge of plagiarism. Nature had "invented" my Harcourt portrait, and had been at work upon it probably before I was born; the wild waves had by degrees moulded a shell into the familiar features, and when completed had left the sea-sculptured sketch high and dry on the coast. I now publish, with thanks, a photo-reproduction ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... something, as they say, "to please themselves." Then in the studio, for all the non-moral protests of Bohemia, there is a tradition, an admirable tradition, of disregard for mercenary imperatives, a scorn of shams and plagiarism that triumphs again and again over economic laws. The public services of the coming civilization will demand, and will develop, a far completer discipline and tradition of honour. Against the development ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... upon and is a lyre. This instrument, as is well known, was first made out of a vacant turtle-shell, by Mercury, the god of gymnastic exercises and of theft, that is to say, of technic, and of plagiarism. Mercury was nimble with his affections also; among his progeny was the great god Pan, who is frequently reported, and commonly believed, to be dead. Pan was so far from beautiful that even his nurse ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... they would reply, "there is nothing extraordinary about that child—no originality whatever. Why, it's exactly like every other baby—bald head, red face, big mouth, and stumpy nose. Why, that's only a weak imitation of the baby next door. It's a plagiarism, that's what that child is. You've been wasting your time, madam. If you can't do anything more original than that, we should advise you to give up ...
— Dreams - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... the couple's interview. Now at this point the girl invites Elfonzo to a village show, where jealousy is the motive of the play, for she wants to teach him a wholesome lesson, if he is a jealous person. But this is a sham, and pretty shallow. McClintock merely wants a pretext to drag in a plagiarism of his upon a ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... exchange for your reveries, what will you gain? The dissatisfaction of a life which will not be wholly yours. The compact is madness. Let me tell you why. In the first place, your projected poem is a plagiarism. A young German girl, who was not, like you, semi-German, but altogether so, adored Goethe with the rash intoxication of girlhood. She made him her friend, her religion, her god, knowing at the same time that he was married. Madame Goethe, a worthy German woman, ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... clear myself of a possible charge of plagiarism. You smile. Ah! but you don't know. You don't realise how careful even a splendid fellow like myself has to be. You wouldn't have me go down to posterity as Pelham the Pincher, would you? No! Very well, then. By the time this volume is in the hands ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the Quarterly thundered on opposite sides. Immense importance was attached by both parties to the scheme devised by Bell, and partly adopted by Lancaster. The war involved a personal element and the charges of plagiarism which give spice to a popular controversy. All parties, and certainly the Utilitarians, strangely exaggerated the value of the new method. They regarded the proposal that children should be partly taught by other children ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... volume of sermons, pointed out a passage almost word for word identical with what the pastor had said in his sermon on the previous Sunday—a curious instance of parallel inspiration. Unkind people afterwards spread the gloss that the elder had accused the minister of plagiarism. Mere fiction, no doubt. After a thing has happened people can generally find twenty causes. The excommunication, however, was real enough, and ten times more effectual because the sentence was pronounced not by the pastor ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... reader of 'David Copperfield'; and it cannot be denied that the two works bear some resemblance both as regards manner and matter. But though Dickens was then widely read and much admired in France, plagiarism is out of the question. If there is a little of Dickens about 'Le Petit Chose,' there is a great deal more of Daudet himself in it. Young Eyssette, the hero of the novel, starts in life as Daudet had done and at the same period of life, in the quality of an usher at a small ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... the observations of her Ladyship on this head, furnish as nice an instance of plagiarism as we recollect. The best of the matter is, that after filling nearly a couple of pages with remarks, amongst which not a single original idea is to be found, save perhaps the rather novel one, that "in Macbeth the interest is suspended at ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... the vicar, "whether we should ascribe these striking resemblances to unconscious plagiarism or ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... lips. When the second page slipped with seeming carelessness from the reader's hand, a sudden shudder ran through the boy's frame. It was as if an icy hand had gripped his heart. There could be no doubt of it. This was more than mere coincidence. It was plagiarism. He wanted to cry out. But the room swam before his eyes. Surely he must be dreaming. It was a dream. The faces of the audience, the lights, Reginald, Jack—all phantasmagoria of ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... extracts borrowed from Chartier, from Berry, and from the rehabilitation trial. The episode of the big fat Englishman slain by Messire Jean de Montesclere at the Siege of Jargeau is obviously taken from the evidence of Jean d'Aulon in 1446; and even this plagiarism is inaccurate, since Jean d'Aulon expressly says he was slain at ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... these things have happened, and are liable to happen again. No library is safe that is not closely watched and guarded. In the Astor library a literary man actually tore out sixty pages of the Revue de Paris, and added to the theft the fraud of plagiarism, by translating from the stolen leaves an article which he sold to Appleton's Journal as an ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford |
