He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
This quote, from a letter by Jeffereson to Isaac McPherson, appears widely in discussions about copyright and technology. Interesting how it connects ideas, instruction and light (not to mention “tapers” or tapors.) See for example, LIBREria.org’s Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig. I also came across it in Mark Katz’s Capturing Sound where he discusses MP3s and Napster-like technologies. (See page 163). Katz in turn finds it in an article by Barlow. In short, the image of lighting one taper from another provides a metaphor for “nonrivalrous resources” – resources where possession and consumption by one person doesn’t diminish access by another.
Lessig provides the full reference as, “Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson (13 August 1813) in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 6 (Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, eds., 1903), 330, 333-34.”