Men often applaud an imitation and hiss the real thing.
— Aesop
ORIGINALITY is unexplored territory. You get there by carrying a canoe -- you can't take a taxi.
Nearly all our originality comes from the stamp that time impresses upon our sensibility.
I think one of the reasons I'm popular again is because I'm wearing a tie. You have to be different.
The original is unfaithful to the translation.
The true is inimitable, the false untransformable.
Everything has been said, and we have come too late, now that men have been living and thinking for seven thousand years and more.
Set me a task in which I can put something of my very self, and it is a task no longer. It is joy and art.
Let us not forget that the greatest composers were also the greatest thieves. They stole from everyone and everywhere.
It's been very important throughout my career that I've met all the guys I've copied, because at each stage they've said, Don't play like me, play like you.
When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.
The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.
An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate.
All cases are unique and very similar to others.
The most original of authors are not so because they advance what is new, but more because they know how to say something, as if it had never been said before.
Begin with another's to end with your own.
All profoundly original art looks ugly at first.
It is a matter of perfect indifference where a thing originated; the only question is: Is it true in and for itself?
Perhaps our originality manifests itself most strikingly in what we do with that which we did not originate. To discover something wholly new can be a matter of chance, of idle tinkering, or even of the chronic dissatisfaction of the untalented.
A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times.
People would rather be wrong than be different.
Your manuscript is both good and original; but the parts that are good are not original, and the parts that are original are not good.
I found you essay to be good and original. However, the part that was original was not good and the part that was good was not original.
A man is original when he speaks the truth that has always been known to all good men.
The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards.
Original thought is like original sin: both happened before you were born to people you could not have possibly met.
It's easier to be original and foolish than original and wise.
We are obliged to regard many of our original minds as crazy at least until we have become as clever as they are.
No one can be profoundly original who does not avoid eccentricity.
But it is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.
All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.
Originality is the one thing unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.
Make a technical contribution; innovate, don't emulate.
The more intelligent one is, the more men of originality one finds. Ordinary people find no difference between men.
Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.
Originality consists in trying to be like everybody else --and failing.
I invent nothing, I rediscover.
When there is an original sound in the world, it makes a hundred echoes.
The greatness of art is not to find what is common but what is unique.
Create your own method. Don't depend slavishly on mine. Make up something that will work for you! But keep breaking traditions, I beg you.
To put away one's own original thoughts in order to take up a book is a sin against the Holy Ghost.
The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.
Originality is nothing but judicious plagiarism.
— Voltaire
I see nothing in it new and valuable. What is valuable is not new, and what is new is not valuable.