Should I Copy or Steal?

Should I copy or steal?
What did Picasso mean when he said, “Good artists copy, great artists steal”? Did he say this or did someone else say it?

There is still speculations and debate about whether or not Picasso quoted, “Good artists copy, and great artists steal.” Maybe he copied or took the quote himself as some say, it was T.S.Eliot who cited, “Good poets borrow, great poets, steal.”

T.S Eliot, a grand thief and poet, and said:

“One of the surest tests [of the superiority or inferiority of the poet] is the way in which a poet borrows. 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. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language or diverse in interest.”

You need the artistic autonomy to draw magnetism in different forms of art from various backgrounds and transform into their own; it being a story or a novel. Finding motivation in the environment in which you live, where nothing is entirely new, and things have the potential to be innovative and artistic. But, in any sub-sub-sub genre that you read a lot then it may seem to be copied.