Picasso had a saying - 'good artists copy, great artists steal' - and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that taking inspiration from others is a key part of creativity and innovation.
Walter Isaacson's quote reflects on the idea that while many artists and creators may draw from the work of others, truly great artists take this a step further by assimilating and transforming those ideas into something unique. This 'stealing' of ideas is not about plagiarism, but rather about understanding and reinventing what has already been done, leading to more profound and original expressions of creativity.
In practice
In a speech about innovation at a conference, I might quote this to encourage embracing ideas from various sources.
I visited Jobs for the last time in his Palo Alto, Calif., home. He had moved to a downstairs bedroom because he was too weak to go up and down stairs. He was curled up in some pain, but his mind was still sharp and his humor vibrant
I've always had an abundance of material about the subjects of my biographies.
Polite and velvety leaders, who take care to avoid bruising others, are generally not as effective at forcing change.
for Steve, less is always more, simpler is always better. Therefore, if you can build a glass box with fewer elements, it’s better, it’s simpler, and it’s at the forefront of technology. That’s where Steve likes to be, in both his products and his stores.
What are the five products you want to focus on? Get rid of the rest, because they’re dragging you down. They’re turning you into Microsoft. They’re causing you to turn out products that are adequate but not great.
When there are multiple versions of a story, you really have three ways to go. You can pick the most sensational version. You can try to balance things in your gut to get to what you think is the honest truth. Or you can err on the side of kindness.
Was it confusing because it was artistic, or artistic because it was confusing?
If there was some sort of mathematical equation for beauty, I don’t know if I would be the algorithm. I’m not a supermodel. That’s not what I do. What I do is music. I want my fans to feel the way I do, to know what they have to offer is just as important, more important, than what’s happening on the outside.
The lighter the skin, the more acceptable you are. The darker the skin, the more marginalised you become. I want to demonstrate that you can produce beauty in the context of a figure that has that kind of velvety blackness. It can be done.
The fun for me musically is that you never quite know what works and why. So why pretend you do? Why not just put things together and discover, in the creative process, if and why they work? That approach has served me well.
Architecture is the learned game, correct and magnificent, of forms assembled in the light.
I can’t worry too much about the everyday things. Otherwise I’d lose touch with my own world, that helps me as an artist, but it’s frustrating for the people around me. I’m vaguely functional, but there’s always something slightly off.
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