The authour who imitates his predecessors only by furnishing himself with thoughts and elegances out of the same general magazine of literature, can with little more propriety be reproached as a plagiary, than the architect can be censured as a mean copier of Angelo or Wren, because he digs his marble out of the same quarry, squares his stones by the same art, and unites them in columns of the same orders.
Interpretation
Imitating successful figures can lead to accusations of plagiarism, even if the imitation involves the same foundational elements.
In this quote, Samuel Johnson argues that using established literary and artistic techniques does not necessarily constitute imitation or plagiarism. Just as an architect derives materials and methods from historical greats like Michelangelo or Christopher Wren without being condemned for copying, an author can draw from the same literary traditions without losing originality, as long as they create something uniquely their own.
In practice
In a presentation about creativity in art, you might reference this quote to illustrate the balance between inspiration and originality.
To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.
He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.
To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of the weary pilgrimage.
Fly-fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.
When any anxiety or gloom of the mind takes hold of you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaining; but exert yourselves to hide it, and by endeavoring to hide it you drive it away.
A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.
Sometimes female characters start out as the wife or girlfriend, but then I realize, 'No, she's the book,' and she becomes a main character. I surrender the book to her.
The music had to be rooted, and yet had to branch out,like the wild imagination of a child.
It is essential to naturalist doctrine that literature, to be good, must, finally, be the author's experience worked out literally.
But I think we are seeing a resurgence of the graphic ghost story like The Others, Devil's Backbone and The Sixth Sense. It is a return to more gothic atmospheric ghost storytelling.
I am a professional sportswriter, among other things, and I take the games seriously. It is only one of my many powerful addictions, and I don't mind admitting any of them.
The more the technocrats programme it down to the smallest detail, the more the powerful manipulate it, football continues to be the art of the unforeseeable. When you least expect it, the impossible occurs: the dwarf teaches the giant a lesson, and a scraggy, bow-legged black man makes an athlete sculpted in Greece look ridiculous.
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