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originality quotes

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“The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity.” Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History
“The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.” Blaise Pascal, Pensées
“A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times.” Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table
“Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.” Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History
“It seems stupid to have discovered America only to make it into a copy of another country.” Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence
“Isabel’s written in a foreign tongue. I can’t make her out.” Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady
“the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot...” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
“I never set out to be weird. It was always other people who called me weird.” Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book
“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, Democracy and Education
“You say you’re not special because the world doesn’t know about you, but that’s an insult to me. I know about you.” John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
“Anymore, no one’s mind is their own.” Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby
“There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something...” Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Related topics

understanding novelty intellect sincerity personality opinion relationship difference America uniqueness story despotism rules uniformity repeating copy weirdness minority idea

Related authors

Thomas Carlyle (2)
Chuck Palahniuk (1)
Stephen King (1)
John Green (1)
Blaise Pascal (1)
Frank Zappa (1)
Alexis de Tocqueville (1)
Edith Wharton (1)
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1)
Henry James (1)
John Dewey (1)

Related sources

On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History (2)
The Fault in Our Stars (1)
The Real Frank Zappa Book (1)
Democracy and Education (1)
Democracy in America (1)
The Portrait of a Lady (1)
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1)
The Age of Innocence (1)
Lullaby (1)
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (1)
Pensées (1)