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Who really said it

Good artists copy; great artists steal

Not Picasso — a line Steve Jobs made famous T. S. Eliot 1888–1965 · American-British poet & critic; wrote the earliest documented form
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

Steve Jobs really did say “Good artists copy; great artists steal” — on camera in the 1996 documentary Triumph of the Nerds — but he credited Pablo Picasso, and Quote Investigator found no substantive evidence Picasso ever said it. The dictum’s earliest documented form is T. S. Eliot’s 1920 line “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal,” with an 1892 precursor. The exact “artists” wording Jobs used cannot be pinned to Picasso or any single author.

Last verified 14 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Good artists copy; great artists steal” Popularly credited to Steve Jobs, who attributed it to Picasso — but there is no evidence Picasso said it. The earliest documented form is T. S. Eliot's 1920 line "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal" (The Sacred Wood).

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Steve Jobs. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

Evoking the world of T. S. Eliot — Poet & critic · The Sacred Wood (1920). Theme: "Good artists copy; great artists steal". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Good artists copy; great artists steal". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The paper trail behind the line

Popular credit
Steve Jobs (quoting “Picasso”)
Documented origin
T. S. Eliot, “Philip Massinger”
In
The Sacred Wood (1920)
Precursor
W. H. Davenport Adams, 1892

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.

T. S. Eliot’s 1920 dictum — the earliest documented form of the idea. The compressed “Good artists copy; great artists steal” is a much later paraphrase that Steve Jobs pinned on Picasso.

Quote Investigator: the full chronology

How we verified this

  • The authoritative anchor: Quote Investigator reports it “has not yet located substantive evidence for the attribution to Picasso,” and traces the saying to T. S. Eliot (1920) with an 1892 precursor by W. H. Davenport Adams.
  • Wikiquote files the Picasso attribution under Misattributed, noting Jobs is “(mis)quoting Pablo Picasso” and that the sayings “may well originate in T. S. Eliot’s dictum.”
  • Eliot’s original: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal,” from “Philip Massinger” in The Sacred Wood (1920).
  • Per QI, the “artists” variant surfaces only by 1959 (Marvin Magalaner: “Immature artists borrow; mature artists steal”) — long after the poets version and with no Picasso trail.

The earliest documented ancestor — T. S. Eliot’s 1920 line — is itself public domain (first published before 1931). But the exact modern wording “Good artists copy; great artists steal” has no pinned first publication: it is a compressed paraphrase Steve Jobs popularized in 1996 while crediting Picasso, and no source ties that exact phrasing to Picasso or any single author. Its provenance is therefore uncertain.

Fact-check

Who really said it?

This line is a double misattribution: pinned on Picasso by the man who made it famous, and often credited to Steve Jobs himself.

Pablo Picasso No evidence

Steve Jobs credited Picasso, but Quote Investigator found no substantive evidence Picasso ever said it, and Wikiquote lists it as misattributed.

Steve Jobs Popularizer, not author

Jobs genuinely said it — in the 1996 documentary Triumph of the Nerds — but he explicitly attributed it to Picasso, so he is the popularizer of a much older idea, not its originator.

The earliest documented form is T. S. Eliot’s 1920 “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal,” itself echoing an 1892 line by W. H. Davenport Adams — the exact “good artists / great artists” wording is a later paraphrase with no verified single author.

Context

Why the line stuck

The saying became gospel in tech and design culture largely because of Steve Jobs, who invoked it to justify Apple’s borrowing of ideas — from Xerox PARC’s graphical interface to typography. Crediting Picasso gave a scrappy act of appropriation the blessing of high-art genius.

But the genealogy runs through literary criticism, not painting. Eliot’s point was precise: weak borrowers merely imitate, while great ones absorb what they take and transform it into something wholly their own — a far more demanding claim than “stealing is fine.”

Jobs really said it — but he was quoting a Picasso who never said it.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Creativity

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Origin: Good Artists Copy; Great Artists Stealquoteinvestigator.com

The authoritative investigation: full chronology from Adams (1892) through Eliot (1920) to Jobs, and why the Picasso attribution is unverified.
Steve Jobs (Misattributed section)en.wikiquote.org

Wikiquote lists the Picasso attribution as misattributed and points to Eliot’s dictum.
T. S. Eliot — “Philip Massinger” (1920)wist.info

The original Eliot line, sourced to The Sacred Wood (1920).
The Sacred Wooden.wikipedia.org

Background on Eliot’s 1920 essay collection that contains the “Philip Massinger” essay.
‘Immature Poets Imitate; Mature Poets Steal’ — meaninginterestingliterature.com

Analysis of Eliot’s original dictum and what he actually meant by it.

The author

About T. S. Eliot

T. S. Eliot

1888–1965 · Poet & critic · The Sacred Wood (1920)

Thomas Stearns Eliot was a poet, critic, and playwright whose criticism reshaped how the English-speaking world read poetry. In his 1920 essay collection The Sacred Wood, discussing the dramatist Philip Massinger, he coined the memorable formula that a mature poet does not merely imitate but steals — the earliest documented ancestor of the line later attached to Picasso and popularized by Steve Jobs.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

T. S. Eliot, “Philip Massinger,” in The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism (London: Methuen, 1920) — earliest documented form of the dictum; the compressed “good artists / great artists” wording was popularized by Steve Jobs in Triumph of the Nerds (PBS, 1996), attributed by him to Picasso.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Good artists copy; great artists steal’?” Last verified 14 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal

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