"Originality is nothing but judicious imitation." - Voltaire

"Originality is undetected plagiarism." - Dean Inge

Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) threw a question out on Twitter last night about the ratio of originality in blog posts.  My response was something along the lines of the two quotes on this post.

"Originality = Plagiarism w/o getting caught." - @mikesansone

Thinking about what I wrote, it seems a bit cynical in belief, maybe even underhanded.

I do believe that we can take ideas we’ve seen or heard and build on them. SCAMPER them. It’s one way I coach bloggers to keep their blog writing fresh.

One of the beauties of the conversphere (H/T to Tony Clark for that term), is the mantra for transparency and authenticity. Give credit where credit is due. And use Creative Commons.