Profoundly inspirational originality quotes will challenge the way you think, change the way you live and transform your whole life.
Famous Originality Quotes
Originality is a by-product of sincerity. — Marianne Moore
it is wiser to be conventionally immoral than unconventionally moral. It isn’t the immorality they object to, but the originality. — Ellen Glasgow
Originality is being different from oneself, not others. — Philip Larkin
The transposition that a painter makes with an original vision gives to the representation of nature a new interest. — Paul Cezanne
Great success in examinations does naturally not as a rule go with originality of thought. — Edward Carpenter
The original is unfaithful to the translation. — Jorge Luis Borges
About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment. — Josh Billings
Be yourself. The world worships the original. — Ingrid Bergman
If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’re not prepared to be original. — Ken Robinson
Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with. — Thomas Carlyle
U2 is an original species… there are colours and feelings and emotional terrain that we occupy that is ours and ours alone. — Bono
The prerequisite of originality is the art of forgetting, at the proper moment, what we know. — Arthur Koestler
The multitude is always in the wrong. — Paulo Freire
Coming to the master is coming in search of your innocence, in search of your lost childhood, in search of your originality… in search of your individuality, in search of freedom. — Rajneesh
Young men and young women, full of courage, originality, and genius, are everywhere to be met with. — Frank Crowninshield
Let us not forget that the greatest composers were also the greatest thieves. They stole from everyone and everywhere. — Pablo Casals
Many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory it too good. — Friedrich Nietzsche
Assimilate all you can from tradition and then say things in your own way. — John French Sloan
Begin with another’s to end with your own. — Baltasar Gracian
When I came up, it was all about originality and collective research. There is an awful lot of imitation going on now. — Steve Lacy
Utter originality is, of course, out of the question. — Ezra Pound
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. Originality is deliberate and forced, and partakes of the nature of a protest. A society which gives unlimited freedom to the individual, more often than not attains a disconcerting sameness. — Eric Hoffer
When I was coming up, we weren’t trying to get a hit or get paid, we were just trying to do our thing. The only thing we were really trying to do was to be recognized for our originality. — Bootsy Collins
A great literary work can be completely, completely unpredictable. Which can sometimes make them very hard to read, but it gives them a great originality. — Yann Martel
Originality is a return to the origin. — Antoni Gaudi
We are all primary numbers divisible only by ourselves. — Jean Guitton
Originality is independence, not rebellion; it is sincerity, not antagonism. — George Henry Lewes
I always try to improve, to find new ways of expressing myself, to keep looking for truth and originality. — Burt Lancaster
Only through immitation do we develop toward originality. — John Steinbeck
No one can be profoundly original who does not avoid eccentricity. — Andre Maurois
Geniuses and prophets do not usually excel in professional learning, and their originality, if any, is often due precisely to the fact that they do not. — Joseph A. Schumpeter
Men often applaud an imitation and hiss the real thing. — Aesop
Creativity is the defeat of habit by originality. — Arthur Koestler
You’ve got to be original, because if you’re like someone else, what do they need you for? — Bernadette Peters
Mistakes are the only universal form of originality. — Mason Cooley
Anyone who attempts anything original in the world must expect a bit of ridicule. — Alberto Juantorena
Some people say I was very brave, but I really just didn’t know any better. All I had was my originality. — Buffy Sainte-Marie
Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another. — Voltaire
Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences — Nikola Tesla
There was a part of me that felt afraid of people in Hollywood going: ‘**** Hollywood with their total lack of originality!’. — Colin Farrell
A man is original when he speaks the truth that has always been known to all good men. — Patrick Kavanagh
Your turn has come to sift through the dreck of humanity for rare specks of originality — David Mitchell
The glass I drink from is not large, but at least it is my own. — Alfred de Musset
Turning popular opinion upside down does not make an original. — Franz Grillparzer
You were born God’s original. Try not to become someone’s copy. — Marian Wright Edelman
Originality is only variation. — Holbrook Jackson
Eccentricity is originality that leads nowhere. — Mason Cooley
Originality consists of returning to the origin. Thus, originality means returning, through one’s resources, to the simplicity of the early solutions. — Antoni Gaudi
A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought. — Dorothy L. Sayers
Nearly all our originality comes from the stamp that time impresses upon our sensibility. — Charles Baudelaire
Originality is going back to origins. — Antoni Gaudi
Photography is a way of shouting, of freeing oneself, not of proving or asserting one’s own originality. It’s a way of life. — Henri Cartier-Bresson
There is no such thing as originality. It has all been said before, suffered before. If a person knows that, is it any wonder love becomes mechanical and death just a scene to be shunned? There is no absolute knowledge to be gained from either. Just another ride on the merry-go-round, another blurred scene of faces smiling and faces grieved. — Clive Barker
If they haven’t heard it before it’s original. — Gene Fowler
Originality is genius. If you respect and care for it, it will take you on the ride of your life. — Barbara Sher
Originality is really important. — Jim Carrey
In this world, one thing you should definitely strive for is originality. Just be who you are, and be your own person. That’s what will make you stand out. — Nolan Gould
Sometimes you have to be worn out and burnt out to become authentic and original. — Michael Eisner
True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision. — Edith Wharton
That was the very centre of his genius – he invented things that anyone could have thought of, and men who can invent things that anyone could have thought of are very rare men. — Terry Pratchett
That one tickled. If electrocution is your way of flirting, I commend you on your originality. — Jeaniene Frost
Imposing an alleged uniform general method upon everybody breeds mediocrity in all but the very exceptional. And measuring originality by deviation from the mass breeds eccentricity in them. — John Dewey
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. — Constantin Stanislavski
Profundity and originality are attributes of single, if not singular, minds. — Edwin Land
Originality is unexplored territory. You get there by carrying a canoe – you can’t take a taxi. — Alan Alda
We often mistake the original part of ourselves for a weakness. — Mason Cooley
A poor original is better than a good imitation. — Ella Wheeler Wilcox
It’s incumbent on good public servants to maintain their voices and originality of thinking. — Ronan Farrow
Enemies are often former or potential friends who have been denied – or think that they have been denied – something. — Idries Shah
Originality is no excuse for ignorance. — Fred Brooks
Whoever the master is whom you prefer, this must only be a directive for you. Otherwise you will never be anything but an imitator. — Paul Cezanne
Originality implies being bold enough to go beyond accepted norms. — Anthony Storr
To overestimate the originality of one’s thoughts is perhaps a less serious defect than being unaware of their newness. There is a more pronounced lack of sensitivity in underestimating (ourselves and others) than in overestimating. — Eric Hoffer
When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work. — Jean Cocteau
Originality finds the unexpected but inevitable next step. — Mason Cooley
The beauty is that through disappointment you can gain clarity, and with clarity comes conviction and true originality. — Conan O’Brien
Originality is in the eye of the beholder. — Mason Cooley
He has left off reading altogether, to the great improvement of his originality. — Charles Lamb
Originality is simply a pair of fresh eyes…. — Thomas Wentworth Higginson
The greater a man’s talents, the more marked his idiosyncracies. Yet in the provinces originality is considered perilously close to lunacy. — Honore de Balzac
Originality exists in every individual because each of us differs from the others. We are all primary numbers divisible only by ourselves. — Jean Guitton
Every film has to be the next something else; originality isn’t celebrated because you can’t market it. — Nick Moran
Every true poet, I thought, must be original and originality a condition of poetic genius; so that each poet is like a species in nature (not an individuum genericum or specificum ) and can never recur. That nothing shd. be old or borrowed however cannot be. — Gerard Manley Hopkins
What is valuable is not new, and what is new is not valuable. — Daniel Webster
A mere copier of nature can never produce anything great. — Joshua Reynolds
All good things which exist are the fruits of originality. — John Stuart Mill
Originality is deliberate and forced, and partakes of the nature of a protest. — Eric Hoffer
Because of this, originality consists in returning to the origin. — Antoni Gaudi
We are the ORIGIN of our art, its homeland. Viewed this way, ORIGINALITY is the process of remaining true to ourselves. — Julia Cameron
Originality is the only thing that counts. But the originator uses material and ideas that occur round him and pass through him. And out of his experience comes the original creation. — George Gershwin
Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of. — John Stuart Mill
Our originality shows itself most strikingly not in what we wholly originate but in what we do with that which we borrow from others. — Eric Hoffer
The incompatibility of aquacity with the erratic originality of genius. — James Joyce
Style; all who have it have have one thing: originality. — Diana Vreeland
As long as you can Houdini your way out of the Sisyphean constraints then originality happens. — David Mitchell
You come to Paris, you get true originality, and it’s wonderful. — Andre Leon Talley
Men are made by nature unequal. It is vain, therefore, to treat them as if they were equal. — James Anthony Froude
I, myself, was always recognized . . . as the “slow one” in the family. It was quite true, and I knew it and accepted it. Writing and spelling were always terribly difficult for me. My letters were without originality. I was . . . an extraordinarily bad speller and have remained so until this day. — Agatha Christie
My originality consists in putting the logic of the visible to the service of the invisible. — Odilon Redon
As a rule, I am very careful to be shallow and conventional where depth and originality are wasted. — Lucy Maud Montgomery
