Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics Of all social institutions, language is least amenable to initiative. It blends with the life of society, and the latter, inert by nature, is a prime conservative force. Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle Ideas improve. The meaning of words participates in the improvement. Plagiarism is necessary.
Progress implies it.
It embraces an author's phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a false idea, and replaces it with the right idea. In this century the writer has carried on a conversation with madness. We might almost say of the twentieth-century writer that he aspires to madness. Some have made it, of course, and they hold special places in our regard. To a writer, madness is a final distillation of self, a final editing down.