Originality Quotes - Page 23

• The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone-that is the secret of invention: be alone, that is when ideas are born.

  Nikola Tesla

  Loneliness, Being Alone, Creativity

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• Creativity, which is the expression of our originality, helps us stay mindful that what we bring to the world is completely original and cannot be compared.

  Brené Brown

  Creativity, Expression, World

  Brené Brown (2010). “The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are”, p.109, Simon and Schuster

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• The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even - if you will - eccentricity. That is, something that can't be feigned, faked, imitated; something even a seasoned imposter couldn't be happy with.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Happiness, Thinking, Evil

  Joseph Brodsky's commencement address at Williams College (1984), as quoted in Robert Inchausti "Thinking through Thomas Merton: Contemplation for Contemporary Times" (p. 110), 2014.

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• People are so constituted that everybody would rather undertake what they see others do, whether they have an aptitude for it or not.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  People, Aptitude, Conformity

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• It's the originality of Pauls Toutonghi's voice and vision that makes this such a remarkable novel. Toutonghi is a true daredevil of a writer, and this fantastically hilarious and affecting book will have you on the edge of your seat.

  Skip Horack

  Book, Voice, Vision

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• Whatever goal, man has reached is due to his originality plus his brutality

  Adolf Hitler

  Military, Men, Goal

  Adolf Hitler (1944). “Hitler's Words”

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• The kernel, the soul - let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances - is plagiarism.

  Jonathan Lethem

  Soul, Substance, Utterance

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• Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination   Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it.

  Jim Jarmusch

  Inspiration, Imagination, Fuel

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• Perhaps the efforts of the true poets, founders, religions, literatures, all ages, have been, and ever will be, our time and times to come, essentially the same - to bring people back from their present strayings and sickly abstractions, to the costless, average, divine, original concrete.

  Walt Whitman

  Average, People, Effort

  Walt Whitman (1963). “Prose works 1892”

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• Originality consists of returning to the origin. Thus, originality means returning, through one's resources, to the simplicity of the early solutions.

  Antonio Gaudi

  Mean, Simplicity, Resources

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• Universities are renowned for their tolerance of unusual characters, especially if they show originality and dedication to their research. I have often made the comment that not only are universities a 'cathedral' for worship of knowledge, they are also 'sheltered workshops' for the socially challenged.

  Tony Attwood

  Character, Dedication, Tolerance

  Tony Attwood (2006). “The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome”, p.301, Jessica Kingsley Publishers

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• Cerebration is the enemy of originality in art.

  Martin Ritt

  Art, Artist, Enemy

  Martin Ritt, Gabriel Miller (2003). “Martin Ritt: Interviews”, p.205, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• These short stories establish Sontag's originality . . . her unique vision, her success with experiments in the form . . . Sontag makes a wonderful stew of the past, the life caught in memory and imagination, serves it all up lavishly laced with silences, and provides us with a gourmand's series of short courses.

  Doris Grumbach

  Memories, Unique, Past

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• From thee, great God, we spring, to thee we tend,- Path, motive, guide, original, and end.

  Samuel Johnson

  Spring, Path, Thee

  Samuel Johnson (1752). “The Rambler”, p.12

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• The authour who imitates his predecessors only by furnishing himself with thoughts and elegances out of the same general magazine of literature, can with little more propriety be reproached as a plagiary, than the architect can be censured as a mean copier of Angelo or Wren, because he digs his marble out of the same quarry, squares his stones by the same art, and unites them in columns of the same orders.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Mean, Writing

  Samuel Johnson (1828). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.278

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• No writer can be fully convicted of imitation except there is a concurrence of more resemblance than can be imagined to have happened by chance; as where the same ideas are conjoined without any natural series or necessary coherence, or where not only the thought but the words are copied.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Ideas, Coherence

  Samuel Johnson (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay”, p.106

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• As not every instance of similitude can be considered as a proof of imitation, so not every imitation ought to be stigmatised as plagiarism. The adoption of a noble sentiment, or the insertion of a borrowed ornament, may sometimes display so much judgment as will almost compensate for invention; and an inferior genius may, without any imputation of servility, pursue the paths of the ancients, provided he declines to tread in their footsteps.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Adoption, Ornaments

  Samuel Johnson (1782). “The Beauties of Johnson: Consisting of Maxims and Observations, Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous”, p.117

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• The complaint, therefore, that all topicks are preoccupied, is nothing more than the murmur of ignorance or idleness, by which some discourage others, and some themselves; the mutability of mankind will always furnish writers with new images, and the luxuriance of fancy may always embellish them with new decorations.

  Samuel Johnson

  Ignorance, Writing, May

  Samuel Johnson (2003). “Selected Essays”, p.525, Penguin UK

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• To exact of every man who writes that he should say something new, would be to reduce authors to a small number; to oblige the most fertile genius to say only what is new, would be to contract his volumes to a few pages. Yet, surely, there ought to be some bounds to repetition; libraries ought no more to be heaped for ever with the same thoughts differently expressed, than with the same books differently decorated.

  Samuel Johnson

  Book, Writing, Men

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”

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• To do nothing is in everyone's power.

  Samuel Johnson

  Power, Progress

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• A strange lot this, to be dropped down in a world of barbarians - men who see clearly enough the barbarity of all ages except their own.

  Ernest Howard Crosby

  Men, Progress, Age

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• Real progress is progress in charity, all other advances being secondary thereto.

  Aldous Huxley

  Real, Progress, Charity

  "Ends and Means: An Inquiry into the Nature of Ideals".

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• To say that it is without pace, point, focus, interest, drama, wit or originality is to say simply that it does not happen to be my cup of tea.

  Tom Stoppard

  Drama, Focus, Tea

  Tom Stoppard (2011). “The Real Inspector Hound and Other Plays”, p.72, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• We all have to fight to maintain our unique style and taste in a world that would have us conform.

  Ralph Lauren

  Fighting, Unique, Style

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• All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: it's one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him... One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Essence, Intriguing

  "Prejudices: Third Series (Le Contrat Social)". Book by H. L. Mencken, 1922.

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