#origin

Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book. ↗

— Edward Gibbon

#book #composition #habits #i #learning

To be original is not creating your own idea; it's the essence of the idea in the reader's mind. ↗

— Kaela Marooney

#essence #inspirational #original #reading #writing

How could those who wrote the Constitution possibly understand its meaning better than those who had the experience of observing and participating in its operation? It is one thing to rail against the evils of politically unaccountable judges enlarging constitutional rights beyond the ideas and purposes of their adopters; another to explain why morally sustainable claims of equality be held captive to the extraordinary obstacles of Article V or subject to the partial and incomplete understandings of 1789 or 1868. ↗

— Jack N. Rakove

#originalism #u-s-constitution #equality

...we have more faith in what we imitate than in what we originate. We cannot derive a sense of absolute certitude from anything which has its roots in us. The most poignant sense of insecurity comes from standing alone and we are not alone when we imitate. It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay. ↗

— Bruce Lee

#faith

The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found. ↗

— Calvin Trillin

#about #been #family #found #leftovers

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. ↗

— Thomas Bailey Aldrich

#bird #eden #ever #fall #first

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. ↗

— Geoff Ryman

#freedom #freshness #healing #honesty #literature

I offer originality: you don't know what my films are like until you go to them. I think that's the reason I've been getting all this attention. ↗

— M. Night Shyamalan

#been #films #getting #go #i

I think we're returning to more of the original vibration of music and creativity through the removal of this distortion called the music industry. That's where we're heading. And it'll cut out a lot of music if people ever expected to make money. ↗

— Jane Siberry

#creativity #cut #distortion #ever #expected

I'm not a household word. The climate for original music is always a bit difficult. ↗

— Jane Siberry

#bit #climate #difficult #household #i