#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

With cold eyes and indifferent mind the spectators regard the work. Connoissers admire the "skill" (as one admires a tightrope walker), enjoy the "quality of painting" (as one enjoys a pasty). But hungry souls go hungry away. The vulgar herd stroll through the rooms and pronounce the pictures "nice" or "splendid." Those who could speak have said nothing, those who could hear have heard nothing. ↗

— Wassily Kandinsky

#artists #creativity #imagination #inventiveness #originality

Unlike a fountain that circulates the same water in an enclosed, perpetually recycling system, a human being circulates thoughts in an unlimited reservoir of self. Don't limit yourself to being a mere fountain when you contain an ocean. ↗

— Vera Nazarian

#fountain #limits #ocean #original #originality

If it aint broke, break it. Then build something better. ↗

— Jonathan Culver

#art #creativity #iconoclasm #new-thinking #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

The beauty is that through disappointment you can gain clarity, and with clarity comes conviction and true originality. ↗

— Conan O'Brien

#clarity #comes #conviction #disappointment #gain

A poor original is better than a good imitation. ↗

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox

#imagination #originality #art

We can never be entirely original, as artists or as people. The genius and vision of those who came before us is too great for us to digress from entirely. Though, as creatures that are compelled to test and surpass our own creative abilities, we must always strive for that originality in everything we do in order to move the world forward. ↗

— Jessica Lave

#artists #creativity #genius #originality #vision

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