#originality

Originality consists in trying to be like everybody else and failing. ↗

— Raymond Radiguet

#else #everybody #everybody else #failing #like

The world is starving for original and decisive leadership. ↗

— Bryant McGill

#originality #wants #leadership

He was no longer quite sure whether anything he had ever thought or felt was truly his own property, or whether his thoughts were merely a common part of the world’s store of ideas which had always existed ready-made and which people only borrowed, like books from a library. ↗

— Milan Kundera

#independent-thought #influence #originality #thoughts #life

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

The ethics of plagiarism have turned into the narcissism of small differences: because journalism cannot own up to its heavily derivative nature, it must enforce originality on the level of the sentence. ↗

— Malcolm Gladwell

#originality #plagiarism #nature

You have to do stuff that average people don't understand because those are the only good things. ↗

— Andy Warhol

#individuality #originality #warhol #individuality

Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about. ↗

— W. H. Auden

#aim #always #authenticity #bother #confuse

Millions of men have lived to fight, build palaces and boundaries, shape destinies and societies; but the compelling force of all times has been the force of originality and creation profoundly affecting the roots of human spirit. ↗

— Ansel Adams

#been #boundaries #build #compelling #creation

About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment. ↗

— Josh Billings

#achieve #any #good #good judgment #honestly

Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth and freshness and originality and spontaneity as it did originally, and you have done a poet's job. The rest is literature. ↗

— Jean Cocteau

#commonplace #did #done #effect #freshness