Originality Quotes - Page 11

• Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.

  George Lois

  Inspirational, Teamwork, Creativity

  "'Damn Good Advice' From One Of The Real 'Mad Men'". Interview with Renee Montagne, www.npr.org. March 19, 2012.

  81 Copy quote

  Show source

• [The] erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardised citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.

  H. L. Mencken

  Knowledge, Independent, Science

  10 Copy quote

• 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.

  Quentin Crisp

  Men, Garden, Soul

  14 Copy quote

• You can believe in originals only if you just don't know their context within literature. Certainly I believe in originality, but it lies with the teller, not the tale.

  William Monahan

  Lying, Believe, Literature

  Source: collider.com

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The most foolish of all errors is for clever young men to believe that they forfeit their originality in recognizing a truth which has already been recognized by others.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Truth, Clever, Believe

  4 Copy quote

• Imposing an alleged uniform general method upon everybody breeds mediocrity in all but the very exceptional. And measuring originality by deviation from the mass breeds eccentricity in them.

  John Dewey

  Mediocrity, Uniforms, Deviation

  John Dewey (2015). “Democracy and Education”, p.176, Sheba Blake Publishing

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Originality is the most deadly mirage in all of art. You can chase it from now until doomsday, and you'll only find yourself lost and dying of thirst.

  Caitlín R. Kiernan

  Art, Finding Yourself, Dying

  Caitlín R. Kiernan's blog entry (greygirlbeast.livejournal.com), July 24, 2005.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. Originality is deliberate and forced, and partakes of the nature of a protest. A society which gives unlimited freedom to the individual, more often than not attains a disconcerting sameness.

  Eric Hoffer

  People, Giving, Conformity

  'Passionate State of Mind' (1955) p. 21

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• You come to Paris, you get true originality, and it's wonderful.

  Andre Leon Talley

  Paris, Wonderful

  "ABC News: Sober Vuitton Caps Global Fashion Marathon". ABC News, 2007.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The question for the ultimate foundations and the ultimate meaning of mathematics remains open; we do not know in which direction it will find its final solution nor even whether a final objective answer can be expected at all. "Mathematizing" may well be a creative activity of man, like language or music, of primary originality, whose historical decisions defy complete objective rationalization.

  Hermann Weyl

  Men, Discovery, Decision

  Hermann Weyl (2013). “Levels of Infinity: Selected Writings on Mathematics and Philosophy”, p.88, Courier Corporation

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Ignorance of the law of irreducibility was no excuse. I could no longer excuse myself with the claim that I didn't know the law -- for knowledge of self and of the world is the law that, even though unattainable, cannot be broken, and no one can excuse himself by saying that he doesn't know it. . . . The renewed originality of the sin is this: I have to carry out my unknowing, I shall be sinning originally against life.

  Clarice Lispector

  Ignorance, Self, Law

  7 Copy quote

• Any page by Paul Goodman will give you not only originality and brilliance but wisdom, that is, something to think about. He is our peculiar, urban, twentieth-century Thoreau, the quintessential American mind of our time.

  Hayden Carruth

  Thinking, Giving, Mind

  4 Copy quote

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

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Writing, Creating, Doe

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1993). “Frankenstein”, p.3, Wordsworth Editions

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• The majority of business men are not capable of an original thought, simply because they cannot escape the tyranny of reason.

  David Ogilvy

  Men, Majority, Original Thought

  7 Copy quote

• Originality in literature is only a new coat of paint on an old house.

  Austin O'Malley

  House, Literature, Coats

  8 Copy quote

• Originality, of course, is what occurs when something new arises out of what's already been done.

  Stephen Dunn

  Done, Something New, Arise

  Stephen Dunn (2001). “Walking Light: Memoirs and Essays on Poetry”, p.2, BOA Editions, Ltd.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I did stand-up comedy for 18 years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four years were spent in wild success. I was seeking comic originality, and fame fell on me as a byproduct. The course was more plodding than heroic.

  Steve Martin

  Years, Four, Comedy

  "Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life". Book by Steve Martin, www.npr.org. November 20, 2007.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Every man has a specific skill, whether it is discovered or not, that more readily and naturally comes to him than it would to another, and his own should be sought and polished. He excels best in his niche - originality loses its authenticity in one's efforts to obtain originality.

  Criss Jami

  Men, Skills, Effort

  Criss Jami (2011). “Salomé: In Every Inch in Every Mile”, p.133, Criss Jami

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Self-projection is, more often than not, the move of the minor craftsman, of the tactics of the hour whose inherent weakness is, precisely, that of originality.

  George Steiner

  Moving, Self, Weakness

  George Steiner (1991). “Real Presences”, p.170, University of Chicago Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is not permitted to a man, who takes up pen or chisel, to seek originality, for passion is his only business, and he cannot but mould or sing after a new fashion because no disaster is like another.

  William Butler Yeats

  Fashion, Passion, Men

  William Butler Yeats (1998). “Mythologies”, p.339, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Every true poet, I thought, must be original and originality a condition of poetic genius; so that each poet is like a species in nature (not an individuum genericum or specificum ) and can never recur. That nothing shd. be old or borrowed however cannot be.

  Gerard Manley Hopkins

  Genius, Poetic, Very True

  Gerard Manley Hopkins (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins (Illustrated)”, p.251, Delphi Classics

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• No one wants my painting because it is different from other people's peculiar, crazy public that demands the greatest possible degree of originality on the painter's part and yet won't accept him unless his work resembles that of the others!

  Paul Gauguin

  Crazy, People, Want

  Paul Gauguin (1978). “The writings of a savage”, Viking Adult

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It may be expecting too much to expect most intellectuals to have common sense, when their whole life is based on their being uncommon -- that is, saying things that are different from what everyone else is saying. There is only so much genuine originality in anyone. After that, being uncommon means indulging in pointless eccentricities or clever attempts to mock or shock.

  Thomas Sowell

  Clever, Mean, Common Sense

  Thomas Sowell (2013). “Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays”, p.328, Hoover Press

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• originality" is everyone's aim, and novel techniques are as much prized as new scientific discoveries. [T.S.] Eliot states it with surprising naïveté: "It is exactly as wasteful for a poet to do what has been done already as for a biologist to rediscover Mendel's discoveries.

  Randall Jarrell

  Discovery, Done, Technique

  "Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964". Book by Randall Jarrell, "The End of the Line" (pp. 79 - 80), 1980.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• This sucks on so many levels." Dialogue from "Jason X" Rare for a movie to so frankly describe itself. "Jason X" sucks on the levels of storytelling, character development, suspense, special effects, originality, punctuation, neatness and aptness of thought.

  Roger Ebert

  Character, Special, Jason

  Roger Ebert (2004). “Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2005”, p.340, Andrews McMeel Publishing

  8 Copy quote

  Show source