Copying Quotes to Boost Your Creativity

By Norbert Juma

Master quote curator and editor on a mission to inspire

Published April 18, 2023

We made finding the best copying quotes easy to boost your creative juices.

Here, you can find the most popular copying quotes worth reading and sharing.

In addition to our quotes section, we discussed why humans copy others.

So, if interested, please continue reading!

Why Humans Are Inclined toward Copying Others

Humans are inclined to copy others and learn new skills as social creatures.

It serves as a critical factor in the survival of humans as a species in the early phase of evolution.

Listed below are the reasons why humans copy others:

Social learning
Influence
Transmission of culture

Social learning is the most prominent and essential reason why humans copy others.

We rely on this behavior, as it helps us learn and develop new skills.

Humans learn from imitating the behaviors or actions of the others who surround them.

For instance, most of us have role models who offer us the courage and motivation to strive for a better life.

This kind of behavior also allows us to improve our verbal communication.

Influence

Conformity or influence proves to be another reason why humans copy each other.

Conformity refers to a person’s tendency to adjust his/her behavior, beliefs, and attitudes.

This adjustment is made under the influence of a society or group (ethnic/religious).

Humans are driven by a desire for social approval or acceptance, making them feel they are following the right path.

Since social influence turns out to be a powerful force, humans are likely to adapt to the behaviors of others.

This is usually done under persuasion, peer pressure, or the desire to fit in a specific stature of society.

Transmission of Culture

Transmission of culture is another reason that encourages the copying behavior of humans.

We, humans, aren’t born with cultural knowledge.

On the contrary, we learn the essential traits of our culture by living beside our elders.

Hence, culture is passed from one generation to other through copying others.

Apart from imitation, there are various other reasons for transmitting culture.

It is imperative for the success and survival of humans in a typical geological and cultural environment.

Adopting the practices and customs of the community makes it possible to survive even the hardest surrounding environments.

Top 10 Copying Quotes

Have a look at the top 10 copying quotes from our compilation.

1. “Copying is about reverse-engineering.” — Austin Kleon

2. “Copying or imitation is the highest form of flattery.” — Tito Sotto

3. “The only way you can better John is by copying him exactly.” — Yoko Ono

4. “It’s not just about looking and copying; it’s about feeling too.” — Paul Cezanne

5. “I spend a lot of time copying saxophone players and trumpet players.” — Bill Frisell

6. “If your competitors start copying you, then you are doing something right!” — Jay Baer

7. “You can’t honor someone by copying them or trying to be exactly like them.” — Michael Craig-Martin

8. “I am much more interested in achieving unison with nature than in copying it.” — Georges Braque

9. “They’ve imitated me so good that sometimes I hear people copying my mistakes.” — Jimi Hendrix

10. “When people start copying your style, you know that something must be happening.” — James Hetfield

Copying Quotes on Art & Artists

Now let’s check out the insightful words from renowned artists to explore the art world through their perspectives and get inspiration.

11. “Good artists copy, great artists, steal.” — Pablo Picasso

12. “A copying artist should get permission or pay the original artist a fee.” — Oliver $

13. “Being a cover artist is not like being a real artist. That’s just copying what someone else did.” — Sebastian Bach

14. “Make copies, young man, many copies. You can only become a good artist by copying the masters.” — Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

15. “Pictorial art is relating tones to create beauty – like chords of music – not the faithful copying of the model.” — Harvey Dunn

16. “Without moving beyond a mere copy, there is no artistry, no originality or artistic advancement; only mechanics.” — Jennifer Young

17. “Some people who look at abstract art say, ‘I could do that.’ A good response is, ‘Go ahead but then you’ll be accused of copying.” — Christopher Willard

18. “Art came fluidly, so I was able to teach myself many of the things I thought were important by copying and mimicking my artistic idols.” — John Dyer Baizley

19. “There’s nothing shocking inherently about that, given that so much of the way that artists are taught is by copying old master paintings.” — Kehinde Wiley

20. “Art does not lie in copying nature.- Nature furnishes the material by means of which is to express a beauty still unexpressed in nature.-The artist beholds in nature more than she herself is conscious of.” — Henry James

Copying Quotes Favouring & Encouraging Copying

Not all authors see copying as bad; others believe it can be a useful learning tool. Here are the quotes in this regard.

21. “Only reality interests me now, and I know I could spend the rest of my life in copying a chair.” — Alberto Giacometti

22. “Start copying what you love. Copy copy copy copy. At the end of the copy, you will find yourself.” — Yohji Yamamoto

23. “Copying is not theft. Because when you steal something, it means the other person doesn’t have it anymore.” — Lexi Alexander

24. “I believe I do much better for the time being by first copying some good things than by working without that foundation.” — Vincent Van Gogh

25. “Copying all or parts of a program is as natural to a programmer as breathing and as productive. It ought to be as free.” — Richard Stallman

26. “You are not copying nature, but responding to nature in full awareness, to the way nature expresses itself in that object.” — Frederick Franck

27. “Never stop writing because you have run out of ideas. Fill the lacunae of inspiration by tidily copying out what is already written.” — Walter Benjamin

28. “When you have practiced drawing for a while… take pains and pleasure in constantly copying the best works that you can find done by the hand of great masters.” — Cennino Cennini

29. “Every child should try everything: sport, music, art, mathematics; they can do it all. Copying and competition are now seen as twin evils, but they are both useful tools.” — Tony Buzan

30. “The great use of copying, if it is at all useful, should seem to be in learning color; yet even coloring will never be perfectly attained by servilely copying the model before you.” — Joshua Reynolds

Copying Quotes about Painters and Painting

Check out the following quotes and get inspiration from famous painters’ insights on the beauty and impact of the painting.

31. “Painting from nature is not copying the object; it realizes one’s sensations.” — Paul Cezanne

32. “My rule was not to paint things as they were. I wasn’t copying; I was remaking them as my own.” — Claes Oldenburg

33. “Perhaps one of the essential exercises in learning to paint is the copying of masterworks in the museums.” — Igor Babailov

34. “You start by copying other people’s paintings or music or whatever. You get all of those skills before you branch out.” — Susan Blackmore

35. “As far as modern writing is concerned, it is rarely rewarding to translate it, although it might be easy. The translation is very much like copying paintings.” — Boris Pasternak

36. “The first is copying nature; the second is copying the first; the third is copying the second… You see the sequence.” — Paul Gauguin

37. “If I don’t have anything better to do that day, I’ll copy paintings, generally by people who have some relationship to the work of the moment.” — Wayne Thiebaud

38. “And you begin by maybe copying the style of writers that knocked you out.” — Stephen King

39. “I looked long and carefully at the picture of a stag painted by Landseer – the style was good, and the brush was handled with fine effect, but he fails in copying Nature, without which the best work will be a failure.” — John James Audubon

40. “I read an article on me once that described my machine method of silk-screen copying and painting: ‘What a bold and audacious solution, what depths of the man are revealed in this solution!’ What does that mean?” — Andy Warhol

Copying Quotes on Innovation & Creativity

Unlock your creative potential with the following insightful quotes from some of the world’s most innovative people.

41. “Creativity means not copying.” — Ferran Adria

42. “You cannot innovate by copying.” — Larry Ellison

43. “Only God creates. The rest of us just copy.” — Michelangelo

44. “Implementing best practice is copying yesterday; innovation is inventing tomorrow.” — Paul Sloane

45. “Copying isn’t particularly creative work. Being inspired by someone else’s idea to produce something new and different IS creative work.” — Shia LaBeouf

46. “Always think that in any area of the arts, you get maybe ten percent of people who are creative, original… and the rest are generally following on, copying.” — Hugh Hopper

47. “I think you can have moderate success by copying something else, but if you really want to knock it out of the park, you have to do something different and take chances.” — Lee Ann Womack

48. “We have a massive system to regulate creativity. A massive system of lawyers regulating creativity as copyright law has expanded in unrecognizable forms, going from a regulation of publishing to a regulation of copying.” — Lawrence Lessig

49. “I love the construction process, and it is always important because we try to experiment and do something new so the builders are not copying any technique from other projects.” — Santiago Calatrava

50. “Instead of mutating by random change and spreading by a form of Darwinian selection, Internet memes are altered deliberately by human creativity. There is no attempt at the accuracy of copying, as with genes – and as with memes in their original version.” — Richard Dawkins