Originality Quotes

People who copy you will always be one step behind.

Madness, genius, originality - it's all the same thing; it's a breaking of our normal value structure and the substitution of another one.

Anymore, no one's mind is their own.

Literature for me… tries to heal the harm done by stories. (How much harm? Most of the atrocities of history have been created by stories, e.g., the Jews killed Jesus.) I follow Sartre that the freedom the author claims for herself must be shared with the reader. So that would mean that literature is stories that put themselves at the disposal of readers who want to heal themselves. Their healing power lies in their honesty, the freshness of their vision, the new and unexpected things they show, the increase in power and responsibility they give the reader.

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves.

There is this common notion that people are shallow and ignorant until they go out and see the world. I, on the other hand, went out and in comparison realized I was in pretty good standing.

But I should caution that if you seek to plot out all your moves before you make them—if you put your faith in slow, deliberative planning in the hopes it will spare you failure down the line—well, you’re deluding yourself. For one thing, it’s easier to plan derivative work—things that copy or repeat something already out there. So if your primary goal is to have a fully worked out, set-in-stone plan, you are only upping your chances of being unoriginal.

When you release the illusion of control, you begin an effortless free-fall toward a grand reunion with your original self.

Artistry, perhaps, is at its core being able to control change in interesting ways.

Stand up.Stand out.Stand firm.Stand strong.

I don't make people comfortable but that's what couches are for.

Originality of mind untainted,And enthusiasm for life, unlimited.

Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that – but you are the only you.

No mathematician should ever allow him to forget that mathematics, more than any other art or science, is a young man's game. … Galois died at twenty-one, Abel at twenty-seven, Ramanujan at thirty-three, Riemann at forty. There have been men who have done great work later; … [but] I do not know of a single instance of a major mathematical advance initiated by a man past fifty. … A mathematician may still be competent enough at sixty, but it is useless to expect him to have original ideas.

Dare to research on the originality of any information.

All profoundly original work looks ugly at first.

When you're socially awkward, you're isolated more than usual, and when you're isolated more than usual, your creativity is less compromised by what has already been said and done. All your hope in life starts to depend on your craft, so you try to perfect it. One reason I stay isolated more than the average person is to keep my creativity as fierce as possible. Being the odd one out may have its temporary disadvantages, but more importantly, it has its permanent advantages.

Be yourself because an original is worth more than just a copy.

Unlike a fountain that circulates the same water in an enclosed, perpetually recycling system, a human being circulates thoughts in an unlimited reservoir of self.Don't limit yourself to being a mere fountain when you contain an ocean.

Knock-offs may look good, but they never last as long as the real thing.

The presence of hundreds of books had finally convinced Hermione that what they were doing was right.

Utter originality is of course out of the question.

There is nothing higher-class than real craftsmanship, diversity, originality and the service of skilled human hands.

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to." #53 - Winter, January 22, 2004 ]

Our ancestors have invented, we can at least innovate.

Absurdity and anti—absurdity are the two poles of creative energy.

The most mesmerizing of artists is always like one who was merely drawing in the sand and people came to watch.

When you are convinced that what you offer is yours, whether it be mediocre or of standard quality, your originality will make people love you in a way you did not expect.

For people never say anything the same way twice; no two of them ever say it the same. The greatest imaginative writer that ever brooded in a lavender robe and a mellowed briar in his teeth, couldn't tell you, though e try for a lifetime, how the simplest strap-hanger will ask the conductor to be let off at the next stop. ...It is all for the taking. All the manuals by frustrated fictioneers on how to write can't give you the first syllable of reality, at any cot, that any common conversation can. All the classics, read and re-read, can't help you catch the ring of truth as does the word heard first-hand.

Enemies are often former or potential friends who have been denied - or think that they have been denied - something.

Breaking from the herd is better than getting lost in it.

I'd rather be interesting, original, & unique then follow the pack. Revel in who you truly are & be liberated!

It's okay to write a cliché in a first draft; it sets a marker that you can get far, far away from in the rewrites.

Thinking outside of the box keeps you from suffocating inside of one.

It's good when a man deceives your expectations, when he doesn't correspond to the preconceived notion of him. To belong to a type is the end of a man, his condemnation. If he doesn't fall into any category, if he's not representative, half of what's demanded of him is there. He's free of himself, he has achieved a grain of immortality.

Creativity is the ability to produce ideas that are both original and valuable.

To be young means to be original, to have remained nearer to the sources of life: it means to be able to stand up and shake off the fetters of an outlived civilization, to dare -- where others lack the courage-- to plunge again into the elemental.

It's neither judgment nor judgment according to the status quo that we have a problem with, but rather judgment according to God's Word that we have a problem with. We sharply dress ourselves, go out into the world, shape ourselves, our personalities according to the world's standards and preferences, allow ourselves to be made dull by the world and its desires in order to appear successful and happy and attractive in the eyes of the world. We love the world's judgment but we hate God's judgment. Absurdly enough, the one that really matters, the one out of the purest of loves rather than a mere contract in hopes of mutual gain, is the one which we so adamantly try to shut ourselves off from.

It is difficult to stop people from thinking on their own and exceedingly so, to get them to think on their own.

We are all feeding from each other, all the time, every day.

We can never be entirely original, as artists or as people. The genius and vision of those who came before us is too great for us to digress from entirely. Though, as creatures that are compelled to test and surpass our own creative abilities, we must always strive for that originality in everything we do in order to move the world forward.

Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos.

It is commonly said to my little friend Legion: Read the great writers for style. But I say to him: Read the great dead masters for ideas. Devour them, Fletcherize them, digest, assimilate, make them part of your blood; let the enriched blood visit your brain. The resultant activities will be fairly your own, and the little kinks and convolutions of your brain, which are entirely different from the kinks of any other brain, will furnish you all the style you will ever get.There are no really fresh ideas; just as there is not any fresh air. Air and ideas are refreshed and refreshing, vitalized and vitalizing; but the thoughts have been thought before and the air has been breathed before.

You don't have to reinvent the wheel... just steal the hubcaps.” ― Michael P. Naughton,

originality and a feeling of one's own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle.

Pseudo-artists think that being an artist means opposing whatever seems to be an establishment. That is not creative at all. True creativity is the ability to gain perspective wherever you may have missed it before.

Improvement is not enough, you also needs innovation.

When we reject our origins, we become the product of whatever soil that we find ourselves planted; the colors of our leaves change as we consume borrowed nutrients with borrowed roots and, like a tree, we grow.

Every text is unique and, at the same time, it is the translation of another text. No text is entirely original because language itself, in its essence, is already a translation: firstly, of the non-verbal world and secondly, since every sign and every phrase is the translation of another sign and another phrase. However, this argument can be turned around without losing any of its validity: all texts are original because every translation is distinctive. Every translation, up to a certain point, is an invention and as such it constitutes a unique text.

I think we live in a time where artists are very tidy and afraid of what others might think. They hesitate in expressing their views and opinions. So being original is rare. For me, it's about living the life you create for yourself, to create your kingdom. I think we should work on being our unique selves and becoming our greatest versions. I like to remind people to take the power to live their life the way they wish.

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take the

Another great mistake is this; another understandable error is this: living to live the footprints of others when you have your own foot! Live your footprints! You were born unique! If possible, put the shoes of others, (they must fit you however) but don't walk as they walked and as much as possible, don't leave the same footprints they left except you were born to be like them or you can change the face of their footprints into a unique artifact!

Sometimes a writer simply finds new ways of saying what has already been said because, ultimately, truth is unoriginal.

If a man were to look over the fence on one side of his garden and observe that the neighbor on his left had laid his garden path round a central lawn; and were to look over the fence on the other side of his garden and observe that the neighbor on his right had laid his path down the middle of the lawn, and were then to lay his own garden path diagonally from one corner to the other, that man's soul would be lost. Originality is only to be praised when not prefaced by the look to right and left.

Be yourself because an original is always worth more than a copy.

I refuse to believe that Hendrix had the last possessed hand,that Joplin had the last drunken throat,that Morrison had the last enlightened mind.

The easiest thing for a person is to accept everything as it is and adjust with everyone in the surroundings by sacrificing or compromising originality, but it's also the worst thing if he proclaims that he has changed himself.

If you are saying the same thing as everyone else, then why would and why should anyone think you are different from everyone else?

Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another. The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours kindle it at home communicate it to others and it becomes the property of all.

Pampered content is a public resignation of artistic integrity.