Writing for money and reservation of copyright are, at bottom, the ruin of literature. No one writes anything that is worth writing, unless he writes entirely for the sake of his subject. What an inestimable boon it would be, if in every branch of literature there were only a few books, but those excellent! This can never happen, as long as money is to be made by writing. It seems as though the money lay under a curse; for every author degenerates as soon as he begins to put pen to paper in any way for the sake of gain. The best works of the greatest men all come from the time when they had to write for nothing or for very little.
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There is no greater mistake than to suppose that the last work is always the more correct; that what is written later on is in every case an improvement on what was written before; and that change always means progress....
If the reader wishes to study any subject, let him beware of rushing to the newest books upon it, and confining his attention to them alone, under the notion that science is always advancing, and that the old books have been drawn upon in the writing of the new. They have been drawn upon, it is true; but how? The writer of the new book often does not understand the old books thoroughly, and yet he is unwilling to take their exact words; so he bungles them, and says in his own bad way that which has been said very much better and more clearly by the old writers, who wrote from their own lively knowledge of the subject....
It often happens that an old and excellent book is ousted by new and bad ones, which, written for money, appear with an air of great pretension and much puffing on the part of friends. In science a man tries to make his mark by bringing out something fresh. This often means nothing more than that he attacks some received theory which is quite correct, in order to make room for his own false notions. Sometimes the effort is successful for a time; and then a return is made to the old and true theory. These innovators are serious about nothing but their own precious self: it is this that they want to put forward, and the quick way of doing so, as they think, is to start a paradox. ... Hence it frequently happens that the course of science is retrogressive.
... and by quoting Schopenhauer's beautiful prose instead of using your own words you are following his wise advice. Montaigne said something similar when confronted as to why he quoted Plutarch so often, replying that if he believed someone had already said something in a way that he couldn't improve, why on earth would he say it in his own words? I would very much have preferred to quote the great man himself of course, for this very reason, but couldn't locate this particular passage.
This Schopenhauer essay resonates strongly with me, hitting on and unifying numerous concepts I'd been playing with. And saying it well.
Even in translation ;-)
I'm still upset that the University of Adelaide's book server was shut down, as it had a wonderfully-formatted set of the essays, shared recently to HN. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21386663
... As for the natural faculties within me, of which my writing is the proof, I feel them bending under the burden.
My ideas and my judgement merely grope their way forward,
faltering, tripping, and stumbling; and when I have advanced as far as I can, I am still not at all satisfied. I can see more country ahead, but with so disturbed and clouded a vision that I can distinguish nothing. And when I venture to write indifferently of whatever comes into my head, relying only on my own natural resources, I very often light upon the matter I am trying to deal with in some good author, as I did just now in Plutarch, in his discourse on the strength of the imagination. Then I realize how weak and poor, how heavy and lifeless I am, in comparison with them, and feel pity and contempt for myself.
Yet I take pleasure in the fact that my opinions have often the honour of coinciding with theirs and that I follow them, though far behind, proclaiming their virtues. I am glad too that I have the advantage, which many have not, of recognizing the great difference between them and myself. And yet I allow my own ideas to run their course, feeble and trivial as when I first conceived them, without plastering and patching the defects revealed to me by this comparison. A man must have strong legs if he intends to keep up with people like that. The injudicious writers of our century who scatter about their valueless works whole passages from old authors, in order to increase their own reputations, do just the reverse. For the infinitely greater brilliance of the ancients makes their own stuff look so pale, dull, and ugly that they lose much more than they gain.
Here are two contrary points of view. The philosoper Chrysippus dropped into his books not just passages but whole works by other authors, including in one instance the complete Medea of Euripides; and ApoUodorus said that if all that was not his own were to be cut out of his works the paper would be quite blank. Epicurus, on the other hand, did not introduce a single quotation into any of the three hundred volumes that he left behind him.
I happened the other day to light on such a passage. I had been languidly following a string of French words, so bloodless,
fleshless, and devoid of substance and meaning that they were just words of French and no more. Then at the end of this long and tiresome road I came upon a rich and lofty sentence which towered into the clouds. If I had found the slope gentle and the ascent somewhat gradual, it would have been excusable. But the rise was so sheer and precipitous that after the first six words I felt myself flying into another world, from which I recognized the depth of the abyss out of which I had come. So deep was it that I have never had the heart to plunge into it again. If I were to load one of my discourses with such rich spoils, it would throw too much light on the stupidity of the rest.
To censure my own faults in some other person seems to me no more incongruous than to censure, as I often do, another's in myself. They must be denounced everywhere, and be allowed no place of sanctuary. I know very well how boldly I myself attempt at every turn to rise to the level of my purloinings and to remain there, even rashly hoping that I can prevent the judicial eye from discovering them. In this endeavour my industry plays as great a part as my inventive powers. And then,
I do not contend with those ancient champions in the mass and hand to hand, but only in repeated brushes, in slight and trivial encounters. I do not press them hard; I merely try their strength and never go as far as I hesitatingly intend. If I could hold my own with them I should be doing well, for I only attack them at their strongest points.
To cover themselves, as I have seen some writers doing, so completely in other men's armour as not to leave even their finger-tips showing; to compose a work from pieces gathered here and there among the ancients - an easy task for a man of learning who is treating an ordinary subject - and then to attempt to conceal the theft and pass it all off as their own; this is in the first place criminal and cowardly, in that having no private resources with which to make a display, they try to boost themselves with other men's wealth; and secondly, it is very foolish to be satisfied by gaining the ignorant approbation of the vulgar through trickery, while discrediting oneself in the eyes of the intelligent. For their praise alone carries any weight,
and they turn up their noses at all this borrowed decoration.
For my part, I would do anything rather than that. I only quote others to make myself more explicit.
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Thanks for reading, I was a bit worried about posting such a long quotation, but couldn't bring myself to butchering this marvel, would have felt like cutting a master painting. Just like Chrysippus.
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There is no greater mistake than to suppose that the last work is always the more correct; that what is written later on is in every case an improvement on what was written before; and that change always means progress....
If the reader wishes to study any subject, let him beware of rushing to the newest books upon it, and confining his attention to them alone, under the notion that science is always advancing, and that the old books have been drawn upon in the writing of the new. They have been drawn upon, it is true; but how? The writer of the new book often does not understand the old books thoroughly, and yet he is unwilling to take their exact words; so he bungles them, and says in his own bad way that which has been said very much better and more clearly by the old writers, who wrote from their own lively knowledge of the subject....
It often happens that an old and excellent book is ousted by new and bad ones, which, written for money, appear with an air of great pretension and much puffing on the part of friends. In science a man tries to make his mark by bringing out something fresh. This often means nothing more than that he attacks some received theory which is quite correct, in order to make room for his own false notions. Sometimes the effort is successful for a time; and then a return is made to the old and true theory. These innovators are serious about nothing but their own precious self: it is this that they want to put forward, and the quick way of doing so, as they think, is to start a paradox. ... Hence it frequently happens that the course of science is retrogressive.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer, "On Authorship"
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10714/10714-h/10714-h.htm#li...