#originality

The prerequisite of originality is the art of forgetting, at the proper moment, what we know. ↗

— Arthur Koestler

#forgetting #know #moment #originality #prerequisite

Art builds upon art, builds upon art...nothing is purely original. We're all inspired by something...or someone. It's a never-ending chain of ideas...and it's magical. ↗

— Shannon Taylor Hodnett

#ideas #inspiration #magical #never-ending #originality

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. ↗

— C. S. Lewis

#art #be original #become #been #before

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

#comedy #comic #course #did #fame

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. ↗

— Herman Melville

#fail #imitation #originality #succeed #than

What is originality? Undetected plagiarism. ↗

— Dean Inge

#plagiarism #undetected

Knowing how to paint and to use one's colors rightly has not any connection with originality. This originality consists in properly expressing your own impressions. ↗

— Thomas Couture

#colors #connection #consists #expressing #how

Forge your iron; shape it by force, not into a flower you already know but into what can also be a flower if you think it is and it is so. ↗

— João Cabral de Melo Neto

#iron-forging #originality #poetry #art

When we reject our origins, we become the product of whatever soil that we find ourselves planted; the colors of our leaves change as we consume borrowed nutrients with borrowed roots and, like a tree, we grow. ↗

— Mike Norton

#heritage #originality #reject #rejection #tree

You couldn't get more original than Laura. Laura. Yes, she was an original, all right. One of a kind. Did they break her mold or what, pal? Or...or did it self-destruct? Still, Laura. The one and the only. Such a plain name for a unique cutie. But perhaps my acuity is not without its problems. I ruin everything: a stupid story to be tapped out on my tomb's stone. I ruined even Laura. And an original ruin is rare. Just ask the archaeologist, "Egypt, again?" Just ask me, "Laura, again?" and we'll both respond: "Yes, again and again. And again. ↗

— Vladimir Nabokov

#love #original #originality #love