Quotes about Originality

Originality is not doing something no one else has ever done, but doing what has been done countless times with new life, new breath.

"When others laugh at your individuality, pity their lack of it!"

"The best part about being yourself, is that no one else is!"

True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision.

An original idea. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them.

Don't worry about people stealing an idea.  If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats.

Respect Originality and Be Original

What tender and devoted mother wouldn't be dismayed and ill with terror at her son's or daughter's stepping even one hair's breath off the beaten track. No, better let him be happy and live in comfort without originality, is what every mother thinks when she rocks the cradle. The only person among us who can fail to reach the general's rank is the original man - in other words, the man who won't be quiet.

If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original.

Most people imitate others.
You should be original,
and whatever you do, do well.

He is a man of capacity who possesses considerable intellectual riches: while he is a man of genius who finds out a vein of new ore. Originality is the seeing nature differently from others, and yet as it is in itself. It is not singularity or affectation, but the discovery of new and valuable truth. All the world do not see the whole meaning of any object they have been looking at. Habit blinds them to some things: shortsightedness to others. Every mind is not a gauge and measure of truth. Nature has her surface and her dark recesses. She is deep, obscure, and infinite. It is only minds on whom she makes her fullest impressions that can penetrate her shrine or unveil her Holy of Holies. It is only those whom she has filled with her spirit that have the boldness or the power to reveal her mysteries to others.

I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail. WILLIAM FAULKNER, address upon receiving the Nobel Prize for literature, Stockholm, Sweden, December 10, 1950. - Faulkner, Essays, Speeches & Public Letters, p. 120 (1951). This text is from Faulkner's original typescript; it was slightly revised from that which he delivered in Stockholm, and which was published in American newspapers at the time (p. 121).

Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.

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.

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 neighbor's, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.

Don't expect anything original from an echo.

The principal mark of genius is not perfection, but originality.

Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous - to poetry. But it also gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.

The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity.

Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with.

No bird has ever uttered note That was not in some first bird's throat; Since Eden's freshness and man's fall No rose has been original.

On parochial school I was told I had an overabundance of original sin.

In Japan we have the phrase, "Shoshin," which means "beginner's mind." Our "original mind" includes everything within itself. It is always rich and sufficient within itself. This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything. It is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.

Riches, fame, and fortune are as ephemeral as lightning, The passion of sexual love and childish piety will vanish like flames. Do not crave and be the master of your own life, Cultivate the Tao and there will be gods to help your karma. Do not lose your original nature and the dust of the earthly realm will vanish, The sky will reveal the circular bright moon.

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

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

HOW TO STAY PROSPEROUS & FREE IN THE 21st CENTURY Americans have always understood that that this nation is unique among nations in the long march of human history, and as we speed into the next century, we seem to be at a crossroads. We are worried that with so many things out of whack; the traditions and institutions that made America great are under attack, standards continue to be lowered, so many minds seem clouded by the fog of liberalism. So let's stay positive; the personal freedoms we still enjoy; the widespread prosperity and bounty unimaginable in any other time and place; the innovations and progress in medicine, technology, communication, science, business, and more; the standard of living never before attained by so many among a nation's citizens...we wonder, will it last? The questions remain. What will ensure that America continues? Can our culture be reclaimed? How can we stay free in the next century? While people of other countries have been restricted m to pursue prosperity, bounded only by the limits of his or her imagination. Besides, only a conservative would ask how we can STAY prosperous and free in the 21st century. A liberal would whine that only a few are prosperous--the evil rich who have somehow gotten rich off the backs of the poor. Liberals don't notice, or understand freedom. They see victims; the oppressed, the downtrodden, and the have-nots. America has had the original ideas of self-government and self-reliance; for which we must thank our Founding Fathers.

Philosophical argument, trying to get someone to believe something whether he wants to believe it or not, is not, I have held, a nice way to behave towards someone; also it does not fit the original motivation for studying or entering philosophy. That motivation is puzzlement, curiousity, a desire to understand, not a desire to produce uniformity of belief. Most people do not want to become thought-police. The philosophical goal of explanation rather than proof not only is morally better, it is more in accord with one's philosophical motivation.

A great idea is usually original to more than one discoverer. Great ideas come when the world needs them. They surround the world's ignorance and press for admission.

We sometimes meet an original gentleman, who, if manners had not existed, would have invented them.