Originality

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What is originality? To see something that has no name as yet and hence cannot be mentioned although it stares us all in the face.

Friedrich Nietzsche

The Gay Science

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Original Citation

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Die frohliche Wissenschaft [The Gay Science]. Chemnitz: Ernst Schmeitzner, 1882, bk. 3, no. 261.

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Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Joyous Science, translated by R. Kevin Hill. Penguin Classics, 2019, bk. 3, no. 261.

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Men grind and grind in the mill of a truism, and nothing comes out but what was put in. But the moment they desert the tradition for a spontaneous thought, then poetry, wit, hope, virtue, learning, anecdote, all flock to their aid.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Literary Ethics

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Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Literary Ethics." 24 July 1838, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA.

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Original thought is like original sin: both happened before you were born to people you could not possibly have met.

Fran Lebowitz

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Lebowitz, Fran. "People." Social Studies. Random House, 1981.

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Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.

Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi

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Szent-Gyorgyi, Albert. Quoted in The Scientist Speculates: An Anthology of Partly-Baked Ideas, written by Irving John Good. Heinemann, 1962, ch. 1, sect. 6.

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Bees ransack flowers here and there, but then they make honey, which is entirely theirs: it is no longer thyme or marjoram. Similarly a boy will transform and mix his borrowings.

Michel de Montaigne

Essays

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Original Citation

De Montaigne, Michel. "De l'Institution des Enfants [Of the Education of Children]." Essais [Essays]. Paris: Simon Millanges and Jean Richer, 1580.

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De Montaigne, Michel. "On Educating Children." The Complete Essays, edited and translated by M. A. Screech. Penguin Classics, 1993.

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They all laughed at Christopher Columbus
When he said the world was round
They all laughed when Edison recorded sound
They all laughed at Wilbur and his brother
When they said that man could fly;
They told Marconi
Wireless was a phony-
It's the same old cry!

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Gershwin, Ira. "They All Laughed." Shall We Dance. Composed by George Gershwin. Performed by Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. RKO Radio Pictures, 1937.

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Original thoughts are like shy animals. We sometimes have to look the other way - towards a busy street or terminal - before they run out of their burrows.

Alain de Botton

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De Botton, Alain. A Week at the Airport. Profile Books, 2009.

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What a good thing Adam had—when he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.

Mark Twain

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Twain, Mark. Mark Twain's Notebook, edited by Albert Bigelow Paine. The Mark Twain Company, 1932, ch. 6. Originally from Notebook, 2 July 1867.

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Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others.

Pablo Picasso

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Picasso, Pablo. "Picasso." Interviewed by Alexander Liberman. Vogue, 1 Nov. 1956.

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The original writer is not he who refrains from imitating others, but he who can be imitated by none.

François-Rene de Chateaubriand

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De Chateaubriand, Francois Rene. Genie du christianisme [The Genius of Christianity]. Paris: Chez Migneret, 1802, pt. 2, bk. 1, ch. 3.

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The only way to be new is constantly to change yourself, and the only way to be original is to increase, enlarge, deepen your own personality.

W. Somerset Maugham

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Maugham, William Somerset. A Writer's Notebook. Greenwood Press, 1970.

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The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable.

H.L. Mencken

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Mencken, Henry Louis. H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: The First, Second, and Third Series, edited by Marion Rodgers. Library of America, 2010, ch. 16, sec. 2. Originally published by Alfred A. Knopf, 1919.

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An essential element of any art is risk. If you don't take a risk then how are you going to make something really beautiful, that hasn't been seen before?

Francis Ford Coppola

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Coppola, Francis Ford. "Francis Ford Coppola: On Risk, Money, Craft & Collaboration." Interviewed by Ariston Anderson. The Behance Blog, 5 Jan. 2011.

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It is the lone worker who makes the first advance in a subject: the details may be worked out by a team, but the prime idea is due to the enterprise, thought, and perception of an individual.

Alexander Fleming

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Fleming, Alexander. Address at Edinburgh University. 1951, Edinburgh University, Edinburgh, Scotland.

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Everyone repeats themselves.

Rachel Whiteread

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Whiteread, Rachel. "Rachel Whiteread: 'I Couldn't Say No. It Felt Right to Do This One.'" Interviewed by Rachel Cooke. Guardian, Jul 7, 2012, www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jul/07/rachel-whiteread-whitechapel-art-interviewchapel-art-interview.

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