"NB: Jobs mistakenly attributed it to Picasso, who never said such a thing. Jobs probably read Richardson’s biography of Picasso, in which the text is misquoted and attributed to T.S. Eliot."
The quote you have above is in fact T. S. Eliot's words, in reference to Massinger, from his selection "The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism", 1921.
If you re-read the citation, you will see her intention that _neither_ T. S. Eliot nor Picasso specifically said "Good artists borrow, great artists steal" but a "bastardization" of Eliot's original writing.
Eliot's intention, "A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest." would discredit every technology company or figure that has been defended by the cliche.
Excellent find, thanks for sharing. It's nice to read the paragraph in its context. From the blog post, I understood that T.S. Eliot quoted Massinger, and that it wasn't his own opinion. Now I see they were Eliot's own words.
"Eliot's intention, "A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest." would discredit every technology company or figure that has been defended by the cliche."
I don't believe so. For example: Jony Ive's designs for Apple have been said to be copies of Dieter Rams' vintage designs for Braun. Ive himself has openly acknowledged that he is inspired by Rams, and that he tries to follow Rams' 10 design principles [1]. I believe that, by Eliot's standards, makes him a 'good poet', given that Ive took from a designer remote in time (50 years a go), from a different product category (computers instead of home appliances), and using different materials (aluminum and glass instead of wood and steel).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ritchie