The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity.
 Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History (1841). copy citation

Context

“But a man need not be great in order to be sincere; that is not the necessity of Nature and all Time, but only of certain corrupt unfortunate epochs of Time. A man can believe, and make his own, in the most genuine way, what he has received from another;—and with boundless gratitude to that other! The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity. The believing man is the original man; whatsoever he believes, he believes it for himself, not for another. Every son of Adam can become a sincere man, an original man, in this sense; no mortal is doomed to be an insincere man.” source

Meaning and analysis

write a note
report