Quotations about:
    originality


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A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times. It has come to you over a new route, by a new and express train of associations.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar
“The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,” Atlantic Monthly (1857-11)
    (Source)

Collected in The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, ch. 1 (1858).
 
Added on 29-Feb-24 | Last updated 29-Feb-24
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“Horace or Boileau have said such a thing before you.” — “I take your word for it, but I have used it as my own. May I not have the same correct thought after them, as others may have after me?”

[Horace ou Despréaux l’a dit avant vous. — Je le crois sur votre parole; mais je l’ai dit comme mien. Ne puis-je pas penser après eux une chose vraie, et que d’autres encore penseront après moi?]

Jean de La Bruyere
Jean de La Bruyère (1645-1696) French essayist, moralist
The Characters [Les Caractères], ch. 1 “Of Works of the Mind [Des Ouvrages de l’Esprit],” § 69 (1.69) (1688) [tr. Van Laun (1885)]
    (Source)

(Source (French)). Alternate translations:

Horace and Boileau have said such a thing before you. I take your word for't, but I said it as my own, and may not I think a just thought after them, as others may do the same after me?
[Bullord ed. (1696)]

HORACE or BOILEAU have said such a thing before you: I take your word for it, but I said it as my own, and may not I think a just Thought after them, as others may do the same after me?
[Curll ed. (1713)]

Horace or Boileau have said such a thing before you. I take your Word, for it, but I said it as my own, and may not I have the same just Thought after them, as others may have it after me?
[Browne ed. (1752)]

Horace or Boileau said it before you. -- I take your word for that; but I said it as my own. Cannot I, after them, have a true thought, and one which others will think after me?
[tr. Stewart (1970), § 68]

 
Added on 1-Nov-23 | Last updated 1-Nov-23
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Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with; as if, observes our author himself, any originality but our own could be expected to content us! In fact all strange thing are apt, without fault of theirs, to estrange us at first view, and unhappily scarcely anything is perfectly plain, but what is also perfectly common.

Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
“Jean Paul Friedrich Richter,” Edinburgh Review No. 91, Art. 7 (1827-7/10)
    (Source)

A review of Heinrich Döring, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter's Life, with a Sketch of his Works (1826).
 
Added on 6-Oct-23 | Last updated 6-Oct-23
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Some new path must be tried if ever I,
With wing uplifted from the level ground.
May on the public voice triumphant rise.

[Tentanda via est, qua me quoque possim
Tollere humo victorque virum volitare per ora.]

Virgil the Poet
Virgil (70-19 BC) Roman poet [b. Publius Vergilius Maro; also Vergil]
Georgics [Georgica], Book 3, l. 8ff (3.8-9) (29 BC) [tr. Williams (1915)]
    (Source)

The poet's ambition. Often quoted as Alia tentanda via est ("Another way must be tried"). (Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:

To raise my self a way must now be found,
That through all Nations I may be renown'd.
[tr. Ogilby (1649)]

New ways I must attempt, my groveling Name
To raise aloft, and wing my flight to Fame.
[tr. Dryden (1709), ll. 13-14]

I too from earth to lift myself will try,
And on the wings of Fame adventurous fly
[tr. Nevile (1767), ll. 11-12]

I too will boldly strive my flight to raise,
And, wing'd by victory, catch the gale of praise.
[tr. Sotheby (1800)]

I, too, must attempt a way, whereby I may raise myself from the gorund, and victorious hover through the lips of men.
[tr. Davidson (1854)]

Some way I must outstrive,
To lift me also from the ground, and then
A flight of triumph on the lips of men!
[tr. Blackmore (1871), l. 10ff]

I must essay a course by which I may raise myself, like other poets, from the lowly ground, and ride triumphant on the lips of men.
[tr. Wilkins (1873)]

Needs must a path be tried,
By which I too may lift me from the dust,
And float triumphant through the mouths of men.
[tr. Rhoades (1881), ll. 11-13]

Be mine the glory to ascend to fame
By paths untrodden.
[tr. King (1882)]

I must try a course whereby I also may soar aloft and hover victorious before the eyes of men.
[tr. Bryce (1897)]

A path must be adventured where I too may rise from earth and fly triumphing on the lips of men.
[tr. Mackail (1899)]

A path will I try that shall lift me above
This earth, and from lip to lip of men my triumphant flight
Will I wing.
[tr. Way (1912)]

I must essay a path whereby I, too, may rise from earth and fly victorious on the lips of men.
[tr. Fairclough (Loeb) (1916)]

No, I must venture a theme will exalt me
From earth and give me wings and a triumph on every tongue.
[tr. Day-Lewis (1940)]

I must find a way to soar aloft
And raise my verse above this common soil,
To fly victorious on the lips of men.
[tr. Bovie (1956)]

I must find a way to raise myself from the earth and fly victorious, my name on the lips of men.
[tr. Miles (1980)]

I must find a way
Of my own to soar above the common ground
And "fly victorious on the lips of men."
[tr. Wilkinson (1982)]

I must try a path, by which I too
can rise from the earth and fly, victorious, from men’s lips.
[tr. Kline (2001)]

I must try for a new path on which I may rise from the earth and soar triumphant from the lips of men.
[tr. Lembke (2004)]

I must essay a path by which I too
may rise from earth a triumph fluttering on the lips of men.
[tr. Johnson (2009)]

I too must find
The way to rise in flight above the earth,
Triumphant on the speech of men.
[tr. Ferry (2015)]

 
Added on 13-Sep-23 | Last updated 13-Sep-23
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If we can advance any propositions that are both true and new, these are indisputably our own, by right of discovery; and if we can repeat what is old more briefly and brightly than others, this also becomes our own, by right of conquest.

Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, Preface (1820)
    (Source)
 
Added on 31-Aug-23 | Last updated 31-Aug-23
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Much of the joy of science is the joy of solid work done by skilled workmen. Many of us are happy to spend our lives in collaborative efforts where to be reliable is more important than to be original. There is a great satisfaction in building good tools for other people to use.

Freeman Dyson
Freeman Dyson (1923-2020) English-American theoretical physicist, mathematician, futurist
Disturbing the Universe, ch. 1 (1979)
    (Source)
 
Added on 18-Jul-22 | Last updated 18-Jul-22
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A nation that silences or intimidates original minds is left only with unoriginal minds and cannot hope to hold its own in the competition of peace or of war.

Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998) American historian, writer, activist
“Free Enterprise in Ideas,” Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent (1954)
    (Source)

Originally published in the Saturday Review (1952), based on a speech to the Advertising Council's American Round Table, New York City (1951).
 
Added on 2-Feb-22 | Last updated 22-Jun-22
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What is originality? Undetected plagiarism. This is probably itself a plagiarism, but I cannot remember who said it before me. If originality means thinking for oneself, and not thinking differently from other people, a man does not forfeit his claim to it by saying things which have occurred to others.

William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
London Evening Standard (1927)

Parallel to this, in James Marchant, ed., Wit and Wisdom of Dean Inge (1927), Inge is cited as saying, "Originality, I fear, is too often only undetected and frequently unconscious plagiarism."

The sentiment is, appropriately, not original with Inge; see here for more discussion and earlier uses.
 
Added on 14-Sep-20 | Last updated 14-Sep-20
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Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new after all.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)
    (Source)

Recounted in the Pennsylvania School Journal, Vol. 46, #7 (Jan 1898) as an anecdote from a clergyman printed in the New York Tribune.
 
Added on 25-May-17 | Last updated 25-May-17
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Reading after a certain age diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking, just as the man who spends too much time in the theater is tempted to be content with living vicariously instead of living his own life.

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
“What Life Means to Einstein,” Interview with G. Viereck, Saturday Evening Post (26 Oct 1929)
    (Source)

Reprinted in George Sylvester Viereck, Glimpses of the Great (1930).
 
Added on 28-Jul-16 | Last updated 24-Feb-21
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The most original modern authors are not so because they advance what is new, but simply because they know how to put what they have to say, as if it had never been said before.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, statesman, scientist
“The Poet’s Year,” A Criticism of the Poems of J. H. Voss (1804) [tr. Austin]
    (Source)
 
Added on 22-Jul-14 | Last updated 25-Oct-22
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The original writer is not he who refrains from imitating others, but he who can be imitated by none.

[L’écrivain original n’est pas celui qui n’imite personne, mais celui que personne ne peut imiter.]

François-René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) French writer, politican, diplomat
The Genius of Christianity [Le génie du Christianisme], Part 2, Book 1, ch. 3 (1802)
    (Source)

Alternate translations:
  • "The original style is not the style which never borrows of any one, but that which no other person is capable of reproducing." [tr. White (1856)]
  • "An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate."
 
Added on 22-Apr-14 | Last updated 22-Apr-14
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When we are convinced of some great truths, and feel our convictions keenly, we must not fear to express it, although others have said it before us. Every thought is new when an author expresses it in a manner peculiar to himself.

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715-1747) French moralist, essayist, soldier
Reflections and Maxims [Réflexions et maximes] (1746) [tr. Lee (1903)]
 
Added on 12-Dec-13 | Last updated 12-Dec-13
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Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear, but forgetting where you heard it.

Lawrence J Peter
Lawrence J. Peter (1919-1990) American educator, management theorist
The Peter Principle (1969)
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 3-Apr-20
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Our debt to tradition through reading and conversation is so massive, our protest or private addition so rare and insignificant, — and this commonly on the ground of other reading or hearing, — that, in a large sense, one would say there is no pure originality. All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.

Emerson - by necessity proclivity delight we all quote - wist.info quote

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Quotation and Originality,” Letters and Social Aims (1876)
    (Source)
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 29-Nov-22
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