Being Original Quotes & Sayings

I am not a speaker nor a preacher. I have no mission to change the world. I have no original words or teaching to give anyone. I reflect only what I've seen and heard - most ordinary, very common. I have no fascination for fresh ideas and activity. All enthusiasm for worldly endeavours and strivings have all but gone. For me, thoughts, words and deeds- the activities of life, are merely the utensils for serving out the 'prasad' of the Being-ness. — Mooji

I loved 'Pulling.' It was so original and hilarious. I remember being very sad when it finished. I'd love to start a campaign to bring it back, but if I did, the actors would probably say, 'We're fine. We're all really busy, thanks. Please don't!' — Sophie McShera

It seemed like an original act, the very kindest act of being human, that he listened. — Sue Woolfe

Be yourself, because an original is better than a copy. — Greyson Chance

True cool is an attitude that is projected from a person who is extremely comfortable in their own skin. Cool people have the ability to forge their own paths, stand apart from the herd, and not give a damn about fitting in. A person who is truly cool is a work of art. And remember, original works of art cost exponentially higher than imitations. Just take a look at the the coolest people in history. They will always be a part of history for being extremely original individuals, not imitations. — Suzy Kassem

I start off with the obvious, that it makes no sense either to believe or to disbelieve in God until a substantial and intelligent definition or concept should be offered. Belief or disbelief is a secondary consideration, contingent on the intelligibility and cogency of the premise; the primal unintelligence or irrationality of moderns is revealed by their eagerness to leap to a conclusion without ever being curious what the hell the original premise was. — Kenny Smith

[H]is 'philosophy' seemed to consist of anything that would be particularly annoying to the powers that be without being so shocking that they would fire him. He got the reputation among the students as an original and a rebel without having to pay the penalty for actually being either. — Orson Scott Card

[On being asked how it felt to be the first female conductor of the Boston Symphony:] I've been a woman for a little more than fifty years, and I've gotten over my original astonishment. — Nadia Boulanger

It is not enough that one surrenders oneself. Surrender is to give oneself up to the original cause of one's being. Do not delude yourself by imagining such a source to be some God outside you. One's source is within oneself. Give yourself up to it. That means that you should seek the source and merge in it. — Ramana Maharshi

Being an artist:
And this susceptibility of theirs is doubly unfortunate , I thought, returning again to my original enquiry into what state of mind is propitious for creative work, because the mind of an artist, in order to achieve to the prodigious effort of freeing whole and entire the work that is in him, must be incandescent, like Shakespeare's mind, I conjectured, looking at the book which lay open at Antony and Cleopatra. There must be no obstacle in it, no foreign matter unconsumed. — Virginia Woolf

It is with considerable difficulty that I remember the original era of my being ... — Mary Shelley

Being part of the original 'Star Wars' generation, I have always known a dark future. — Greg Van Eekhout

When you're feeling unwell, remember that the same power that actually made your body knows how to restore it to its original state of well-being. All you have to do is remove the obstacles erected by you and your toxic world, and allow this healing power to flow through you. — Wayne Dyer

These are the oldest memories on earth, the time codes carried in every chromosome and gene. Every step we've taken in our evolution is a milestone inscribed with organic memories. From the enzymes controlling the carbon-dioxide cycle, to the organization of the brachial plexus and the nerve pathways of the pyramid cells of the mid-brain. Each is a record of a thousand decisions taken in a chemical crisis. Just as psychoanalysis reconstructs the original traumatic situation in order to release the repressed material, so we are now being plunged back into the archaeopsychic past, uncovering the ancient taboos and drives that have been dormant for epochs. — J.G. Ballard

I like that original romance of having a pen and a legal pad and going anywhere in the world and being able to write a novel with just those two things. — Alice McDermott

If you, like, consciously think about being cool, you're not cool. If you consciously think about being, like, different or original, you ain't different or original. — Junot Diaz

Unhappy memories are persistent. They're specific, and it's the details that refuse to leave us alone. Though a happy memory may stay with you just as long as one that makes you miserable, what you remember softens over time. What you recall is simply that you were happy, not necessarily the individual moments that brought about your joy.
But the memory of something painful does just the opposite. It retains its original shape, all bony fingers and pointy elbows. Every time it returns, you get a quick poke in the eye or jab in the stomach. The memory of being unhappy has the power to hurt us long after the fact. We feel the injury anew each and every time we think of it. — Cameron Dokey

Every time I add something I truly believe is original and belonging to myself it ends up being stolen orn taken down.
So No! I will not add any quotes Besides it's considered a Narcissistic act to quote oneself in my book. — Zachary Appleton

We find these joys to be self evident: That all children are created whole, endowed with innate intelligence, with dignity and wonder, worthy of respect. The embodiment of life, liberty and happiness, children are original blessings, here to learn their own song. Every girl and boy is entitled to love, to dream and belong to a loving "village." And to pursue a life of purpose.
We affirm our duty to nourish and nurture the young, to honour their caring ideals as the heart of being human. To recognize the early years as the foundation of life, and to cherish the contribution of young children to human evolution.
We commit ourselves to peaceful ways and vow to keep from harm or neglect these, our most vulnerable citizens. As guardians of their prosperity we honour the bountiful Earth whose diversity sustains us. Thus we pledge our love for generations to come. — Raffi Cavoukian

Living original means being confident that God made you in a really cool, unique way — Sadie Robertson

For someone who is starting out on developing their critical skills, just being aware of its existence is great: it can make the difference between trying to write a story around a cliche or an original idea, and better still, studying it can eventually clue you in on how to breathe new life into tired tropes. — Charles Stross

I'm trying to speak
to write-the truth. Im trying to be clear. I'm not interested in being fancy, or even original. Clarity and truth will be plenty, if I can only achieve them. — Octavia E. Butler

There's an enormous difference between being a story writer and being a regular person. As a person, it's your duty to stay on a straight and even keel, not to break down blubbering in the streets, not to pull rude drivers from their cars, not to swing from the branches of trees. But as a writer it's your duty to lie and to view everything in life, however outrageous, as an interesting possibility. You may need to be ruthless or amoral in your writing to be original. Telling a story straight from real life is only being a reporter, not a creator. You have to make your story bigger, better, more magical, more meaningful than life is, no matter how special or wonderful in real life the moment may have been. — Rick Bass

Don't be afraid of books, even the most dissident, seemingly 'immoral' ones. Culture is a sure bet in life, whether high, low, eclectic, pop, ancient or modern. And I am convinced that reading is one of the most important tools of liberation that any human being, and a contemporary Arab woman in particular, can exploit. I am not saying it is the ONLY tool, especially with all the new alternative - more visual, interactive and hasty - ways of knowledge, learning and growth. But how could I not be convinced of literature's power, when it has been my original emancipator? — Joumana Haddad

The pleasure and the love of God for His creatures constitute the original state. His pleasure and love are the means by which He has brought His creatures into existence and are the cause of that bringing into existence. He who knows that he possesses neither being nor act rediscovers himself in that original state of pleasure and divine love. — Abdelkader El Djezairi

What is the nature of that place where our original self is one with its longing to explore its own deepest possibilities, and where discovering the treasures waiting there is the same as fulfilling our purpose for being? — Guy Finley

Were you somebody different a thousand years ago? Will you be somebody different a thousand years from now? What is this One Self that is forever your own deepest being? Must you believe the lies of time? Must you swallow the insanity that One Spirit does not exist? Can you show me your Original Face, of which there is One and Only One in all the entire World? — Ken Wilber

This is the thing they don't tell you about being a third wheel - it's not like you're the wheel that's added on. You were one of the original two wheels, but suddenly you're not so important anymore. The relationship drives fine without you. — David Levithan

[M]an cannot be wicked without being evil, nor evil without being degraded, nor degraded without being punished, nor punished without being guilty. In short ... there is nothing so intrinsically plausible as the theory of original sin. — Joseph De Maistre

THIS law of nature, being co-eval with mankind and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all their force, and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original. — William Blackstone

Don't waste time and energy being an imitation. Let God make you into an original. — Warren W. Wiersbe

Don't commit to being a columnist unless you're willing to do it right. Report your behind off, so you have something original and useful to say. Say it in a way that will interest someone other than you, your family and your sources. — Allan Sloan

Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature. — Plato

Hesitancy is the surest destroyer of talent. One cannot be timorous and reticent, one must be original and loud. New metaphors, new rhythms, new expressions of emotion can only spring from unhindered gall. Nothing should interfere with that intuition
not the fear of appearing stupid, nor of offending somebody, nor jeopardizing publication, nor being trivial. The intuition must be as unhindered as a karate chop. — Stephen Dobyns

Examples out of History, of People free and in the State of Nature, that being met together incorporated and began a Common-wealth. And if the want of such instances be an argument to prove that Government were not, nor could not be so begun, I suppose the contenders for Parernal Empire were better let it alone, than urge it against natural Liberty. For if they can give so many instances out of History, of Governments begun upon Paternal Right, I think (though at best an Argument from what has been, to what should of right be, has no great force) one might, without any great danger, yield them the cause. But if I might advise the Original of Governments, as they have begun de facto, lest they should find at the foundation of most of them, something very little favourable to the design they promote, and such a power as they contend for. — John Locke

I feel like a novice, just as I felt before I knew anything of the keyboard. It is far too original, and I shall end up not being able to learn it myself. — Frederic Chopin

Know all the paths, but walk on your path! Be original! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Only the Indians respect the forest," Paolo said. "The white people cut it all down." Mato Grosso, he went on, was being transformed into domesticated farmland, much of it dedicated to soybeans. In Brazil alone, the Amazon has, over the last four decades, lost some two hundred and seventy thousand square miles of its original forest cover - an area bigger than France. Despite government efforts to reduce deforestation, in just five months in 2007 as much as two thousand seven hundred square miles were destroyed, a region larger than the state of Delaware. Countless — David Grann

To an omniscient being, nothing in all of Creation can be original, fashionable, or even distinct, as every event, thought, action, adventure and discovery is occurring simultaneously in one stretched-out moment. To be omniscient means to have never felt even the slightest twang of curiosity, for there can be no unexpected twists if every outcome to every drama and experiment is already known. Without the capacity for curiosity it is, therefore, impossible for the omniscient being to be interested in anything, let alone be attentive to His own pleasure, as pleasure is inaccessible if all of Creation is, from His great perspective, perfectly flat and of a uniform temperature. — John Zande

Souls are simply aspects of ego splintered off from Mae and Jin, the two original gods. They began with no ego at all, you know. But as they gained awareness of themselves, each affirmation of something they were created a denial of something they weren't. This created a polarity, a split between themselves and something that became a new 'soul' - an un-being that gave that shadow voice. One god, declaring himself to be good and denying that he was evil, split into two parts - one good and one evil - because each god is both good and evil. Each part, as it gained awareness of itself and declared itself this or that but denied that it was the shadow of each new identification, split into more and more pieces - creating an exponential birth of new souls. — Colleen Chen

What was missing, I've come to believe, were the two postures that are most characteristically biblical -- the two postures that have been least explored by Christians in the last century. They are found at the very beginning of the human story, according to Genesis: like our first parents, we are to be creators and cultivators. Or to put it more poetically, we are artists and gardeners. ... after the contemplation, the artist and the gardener both adopt a posture of purposeful work. They bring their creativity and effort to their calling. ... They are acting in the image of One who spoke a world into being and stooped down to form creatures from the dust. They are creaturely creators, tending and shaping the world that original Creator made. — Andy Crouch

But this is one of the rewards of reading the Old Testament regularly. You keep on discovering more and more what a tissue of quotations from it the New Testament is; how constantly our Lord repeated, reinforced, continued, refined, and sublimated, the Judaic ethics, how very seldom He introduced a novelty...The Light which has lightened every man from the beginning may shine more clearly but cannot change. The Origin cannot suddenly start being, in the popular sense of the word, "original". — C.S. Lewis

I felt a particular attachment, naturally, to the Superman character and really dug deep, but at the same time, I am a passionate fan, be it Star Wars, be it the entire Marvel catalog, be it the DC catalog, or the original thinking at Pixar. I'm a fan first, so I'm always curious to see the way people express themselves and how it's being done. — Joseph McGinty Nichol

The grace is being able to like rock music,
symphony music, jazz ...
anything that contains the original energy of
joy. — Charles Bukowski

Like a wind, like a storm, like a fire, like an earthquake, like a mud slide, like a deluge, like a tree falling, a torrent roaring, an ice floe breaking, like a tidal wave, like a shipwreak, like an explosion, like a lid blown off, like a consuming fire, like spreading blight, like a sky darkening, a bridge collapsing, a hole opening. Like a volcano erupting.

Surely more than just the actions of people: choosing, yielding, braving, lying, understanding, being right, being deceived, being consistent, being visionary, being reckless, being cruel, being mistaken, being original, being afraid . . . — Susan Sontag

Being in the image and likeness of this Creator, you are infinitely powerful, abundant, peaceful and perfect in the exact same way. You may have forgotten this, but evolution and growth is all about remembering what you already are. Step by step, you realize higher aspects of yourself. You remember. As such, there is nothing new to learn. All you are doing is unlearning the original error, step by step, at whatever rate you choose. — David Cameron Gikandi

If one has fear, there can be no initiative in the creative sense of the word. To have initiative in this sense is to do something original - to do it spontaneously, naturally, without being guided, forced, controlled. It is to do something which you love to do. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Had the new people learned what Original Man was taught at a council of animals - never damage Creation, and never interfere with the sacred purpose of another being - the eagle would look down on a different world. The salmon would be crowding up the rivers, and passenger pigeons would darken the sky. Wolves, cranes, Nehalem, cougars, Lenape, old-growth forests would still be here, each fulfilling their sacred purpose. I would be speaking Potawatomi. We would see what Nanabozho saw. It does not bear too much imagining, for in that direction lies heartbreak. — Robin Wall Kimmerer

Christ, he thinks, by my age I ought to know. You don't get on by being original. You don't get on by being bright. You don't get on by being strong. You get on by being a subtle crook; somehow he thinks that's what Norris is, and he feels an irrational dislike taking root, and he tries to dismiss it, because he prefers his dislikes rational, but after all, these circumstances are extreme, the cardinal in the mud, the humiliating tussle to get him back in the saddle, the talking, talking, on the barge, and worse, the talking, talking on his knees, as if Wolsey's unraveling, in a great unweaving of scarlet thread that might lead you back into a scarlet labyrinth, with a dying monster at its heart. — Hilary Mantel

Do not cringe and make yourself small if you are called the black sheep, the maverick, the lone wolf. Those with slow seeing say that a noncomformist is a blight on society. But it has been proven over the centuries, that being different means standing at the edge, that one is practically guaranteed to make an original contribution, a useful and stunning contribution to her culture. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

During the day I negotiated buying mom and pop companies and incorporating them into our larger network. Sometimes we let the original owners stay on as consultants. Rarely, actually, if I'm being honest and, even when we did, it never usually lasted for very long. Mostly, those once proud owners would see the box store makeover of their businesses and decide that retirement in some warm locale really did seem the better option. Did I ever feel guilty looking at these hardworking people and taking everything they'd assembled? Not even a little. Would you feel guilty handing someone hundreds of thousands or, in some cases, millions of dollars to go do whatever tickles their fancy? — Mandy Nachampassack-Maloney

Badness cannot succeed even in being bad in the same way in which goodness is good. Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness. Evil is a parasite, not an original thing. — C.S. Lewis

I haven't come across any recent new ideas in film that strike me as being particularly important and that have to do with form. I think that a preoccupation with originality of form is more or less a fruitless thing. A truly original person with a truly original mind will not be able to function in the old form and will simply do something different. Others had much better think of the form as being some sort of classical tradition and try to work within it. — Stanley Kubrick

The two revolutions, I mean the annual revolutions of the declination and of the centre of the Earth, are not completely equal; that is the return of the declination to its original value is slightly ahead of the period of the centre. Hence it necessarily follows that the equinoxes and solstices seem to anticipate their timing, not because the sphere of the fixed stars moves to the east, but rather the equatorial circle moves to the west, being at an angle to the plane of the ecliptic in proportion to the declination of the axis of the terrestrial globe. — Nicolaus Copernicus

I thought maybe if you wore different clothes at school,' Paul said, 'maybe you could start a trend. You'd be original.' 'Oh, my God,' she said. 'It's high school, Dad. People get beat up for being original. — Sherman Alexie

A writer does not own words any more than a painter owns colors. So lets dispense with this originality fetish ... Look, listen and transcribe and forget about being original. — William S. Burroughs

As Asian-Americans, the charge that is often lobbed against us is sort of the least original: the idea that somehow we're perpetual foreigners, that we can't be trusted, and that even my father, who was patriotic to the point that it was kind of a joke among his children, would be accused of being disloyal to America. — David Henry Hwang

From the original watchtower through the anchored balloon to the reconnaissance aircraft and remote sensing-satellites, one and the same function has been indefinitely repeated, the eye's function being the function of a weapon. — Paul Virilio

We get trapped and configured in patterns of consumption, patterns of social organization, of education and value systems that don't seem to be feeding that sense of our original being. We fight ourselves, repeating other people's games and being fed their appetites and their amusements. — James O'Dea

If you are paralyzed by your past, if Satan is destroying your gifts and your calling by his incessant replaying of old tapes, you're actually being hit by a double whammy. The original damage in the past is one thing - but now you're letting yourself be hurt and sidetracked again by the memory of what happened ... We should not be ignorant of Satan's devices, and these ugly memories are one of the main weapons in his arsenal. — Jim Cymbala

'Dance to the Music' was just Sly Stone being his natural crazy self right from the beginning. The man was an original and his first AM hit was nothing if it wasn't the example per excellence of the Sly Stone music machine. — Jon Landau

The archaeologists who will come and blow away the ashes from our house will unearth only the metal parts of the sophisticated furnishings, and it will take them some time to reconstruct their original beauty; they will find very few objects and almost no embellishments, not even in Emanuele's room, which from year to year is being emptied of toys and colors, because everything that's important to him is now found in the circuits of a tablet. I wonder what would suggest to them that a couple and then a family had lived in those rooms and that they were happy together, at least for long stretches of time. — Paolo Giordano

You don't get on by being original. You don't get on by being bright. You don't get on by being strong. You get on by being a subtle crook. — Hilary Mantel

It is interesting to note that the original problem that started my research is still outstanding - namely the problem of planning or scheduling dynamically over time, particularly planning dynamically under uncertainty. If such a problem could be successfully solved it could eventually through better planning contribute to the well-being and stability of the world. — George Dantzig

It was not long before the possibly serious translation errors uncovered in the Vulgate threatened to force revision of existing church teachings. Erasmus pointed out some of these in 1516. An excellent example is found in the Vulgate translation of the opening words of Jesus's ministry in Galilee (Matthew 4:17) as: "do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." This translation creates a direct link between the coming of God's kingdom and the sacrament of penance. Erasmus pointed out that the original Greek text should be translated as: "repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand." Where the Vulgate seemed to refer to an outward practice (the sacrament of penance), Erasmus insisted that the reference was to an inward psychological attitude - that of "being repentant. — Alister E. McGrath

How is it, that for many of us, being a good Christian is nothing more than being a good person? The entire focus of our faith has been the elimination of sin, which is important but inadequate; rather than the unleashing of a unique, original, extraordinary, wonderfully untamed, faith. — Erwin Raphael McManus

If the Gospel of Judas found in Codex Tchacos can be convincingly identified as being a Coptic translation of the original Greek Gospel of Judas that Bishop Ireneaus mentioned around A.D. 180 in his book, "Against Heresies," it will be an important step in the study of ancient gnosticism. We would have for the first time the chance to trace back the history of Sethian gnosticism to before the time of Irenaeus. This would be a significant gain in our knowledge of early Christianity. — Gregor Wurst

The beauty of ideas is that they are like waves in the ocean and they connect with things that came before them, and I think it is very important to embrace things that interest you and influence you, and incorporate them into what you do, as all artists have always done. The ones that say they don't, are lying. Or are afraid that their work won't be seen as being original, somehow. — Jim Jarmusch

It is in the nature of original contemporary art to present itself as a bad risk. And we the public ... should be proud of being in this predicament, because nothing else would seem to us quite true to life; and art, after all, is supposed to be a mirror of life. — Leo Steinberg

Since humanity came into being, man hath enjoyed himself too little: that alone, my brethren, is our original sin. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I was very into making the Big Artistic Statement - it had to be innovative; it had to be cutting edge. I was desperately keen on being original. — David Bowie

Oh Cecelia, you would have loved my grandmother, Miz Goodpepper said, dunking a cookie into her wine. She was so alive and full of original ideas, especially for that era. While other women were busy being proper, she was busy cultivating her spirit. — Beth Hoffman

In regards to those other franchises that are being remade, we must take pains to mention that we're the only one where the original creators are actually making the movie. It's a special feel of quality, like a Good Housekeeping quality. — David Kirschner

When the truth would be unbearable the mind often just blanks it out. But some ghost of an event may stay in your head. Then, like the smudge of a bad word quickly wiped off a school blackboard, this ghost can call undue attention to itself by its very vagueness. You keep studying the dim shape of it, as if the original form will magically emerge. This blank spot in my past, then, spoke most loudly to me by being blank. It was a hole in my life that I both feared and kept coming back to because I couldn't quite fill it in. — Mary Karr

There is no such thing as a bottomless pit. If it were bottomless, it would not be a pit. The only thing that comes close to being a bottomless pit is the intrinsic depravity of mankind. — Ron Brackin

If you want to experience a free-flowing discourse devoid of limitation, you need to seek the darkest fringes of the Internet (and none of that anonymous bile can bleed back into proper society, because the interpretation always ends up being worse than the original sentiment). — Chuck Klosterman

We have a right to expect that the best trained, the best educated men on the Pacific slope, the Rocky Mountains, and great plains States will take the lead in the preservation and right use of forests, in securing the right use of waters, and in seeing that our land policy is not twisted from its original purpose, but is perpetuated by amendment, by change when such change is necessary in the life of that purpose, the purpose being to turn the public domain into farms each to be the property of the man who actually tills it and makes his home in it. — Theodore Roosevelt

Being original doesn't require being first. It just means being different and better. — Adam M. Grant

Following the Universal Way means practicing selflessness and extending virtue to the world unconditionally. In this way one not only eliminates the heavy contamination accumulated throughout many lifetimes but may also bring about the possibility of restoring one's original divine nature and become an integral being of the multi-universe. — Lao-Tzu

Be yourself. An original is always worth more than a copy. — Suzy Kassem

The reactivation of original perceptions is, however, only one side of regression. The other side is regression to infantile memories, and though this might equally well be called regression to the original perceptions, it nevertheless deserves special mention because it has an importance of its own. It might even be considered as an "historical" regression. In this sense the dream can, with Freud, be described as a modified memory - modified through being projected into the present. The original scene of the memory is unable to effect its own revival, so has to be content with returning as a dream. — C. G. Jung

From that original colony sprang seven names that still feature on the landscape: Roanoke (which has the distinction of being the first Indian word borrowed by English settlers), Cape Fear, Cape Hatteras, the Chowan and Neuse Rivers, Chesapeake, and Virginia. (Previously, Virginia had been called Windgancon, meaning "what gay clothes you wear" - apparently what the locals had replied when an early reconnoitering party had asked the place's name.) — Bill Bryson

Too often, you see film makers from other countries who have made interesting, original films, and then they come here and get homogenized into being hack Hollywood directors. I don't want to fall into that. — Peter Jackson

To just be--to be--amidst all doings, achievings, and becomings. This is the natural state of mind, or original, most fundamental state of being. This is unadulterated Buddha-nature. This is like finding our balance. — Lama Surya Das

Why settle for being a carbon copy; when you were created to be an original? — James A. Jimason

Being transgender guarantees you will upset someone. People get upset with transgender people who choose to inhabit a third gender space rather than "pick a side." Some get upset at transgender people who do not eschew their birth histories. Others get up in arms with those who opted out of surgical options, instead living with their original equipment. Ire is raised at those who transition, then transition again when they decide that their initial change was not the right answer for them. Heck, some get their dander up simply because this or that transgender person simply is not "trying hard enough" to be a particular gender, whatever that means. Some are irked that the Logo program RuPaul's Drag Race shows a version of transgender life different from their own. Meanwhile, all around are those who have decided they aren't comfortable with the lot of us, because we dared to change from one gender expression or identity to some other. — Kate Bornstein

Distractions are everywhere. And with the always-on technologies of today, they take a heavy toll on productivity. One study found that office distractions eat an average 2.1 hours a day. Another study, published in October 2005, found that employees spent an average of 11 minutes on a project before being distracted. After an interruption it takes them 25 minutes to return to the original task, if they do at all. — David Rock

True translation is not a binary affair between two languages but a triangular affair. The third point of the triangle being what lay behind the words of the original text before it was written. True translation demands a return to the pre-verbal. One reads and rereads the words of the original text in order to penetrate through them to reach, to touch, the vision or experience that prompted them. One then gathers up what one has found there and takes this quivering almost wordless "thing" and places it behind the language it needs to be translated into. And now the principal task is to persuade the host language to take in and welcome the "thing" that is waiting to be articulated. — John Berger

Horrors, I believe, should be original - the use of common myths and legends being a weakening influence. — H.P. Lovecraft

The history of the universe and nature is being told to us by the stars, by the Earth, by the uprising and elevation of the mountains, by the animals, the woods and jungles, and by the rivers. Our task is to know how to listen and interpret the messages that are sent to us. The original peoples knew how to read every movement of the clouds, the meaning of the winds, and they knew when violent downpours were coming ... We have forgotten all that. — Leonardo Boff

I believe that any form of art is a species of exploration and transgression ... Art by its nature is a transgressive act, and artists must accept being punished for it. The more original and unsettling their art, the more devastating the punishment. — Joyce Carol Oates

The fascination of somebody with original creative gifts is something that's always drawn me. I get attached to them, but I can't call it being in love, because the words are so debased. — Emma Tennant

I decided to do philosophy at university, with a view to becoming a professional philosopher. Being a rather unstable character, at some points I had doubts about becoming a professional philosopher, but the example of two of my teachers, Ezequiel de Olaso and Juan Rodriguez Larreta, made me confirm my original decision. — Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

ALLODIUM (ALLO'DIUM) n.s.[A word of very uncertain derivation, but most probably of German original.]A possession held in absolute independence, without any acknowledgment of a lord paramount. It is opposed to fee, or feudum, which intimates some kind of dependance. There are no allodial lands in England, all being held either mediately or immediately of the king. — Samuel Johnson

I've gotten more flack from the remake nature of our 'Being Human' from American audiences than I have from British fans. Every fan of the BBC original that I've bumped into seemed very excited and interested in seeing what we did with it - at least to my face! — Samuel Witwer

A room full of fags gives me the horrors. They jerk around like puppets on invisible strings, galvanized into hideous activity that is the negation of everything living and spontaneous. The live human being has moved out of these bodies long ago. But something moved in when the original tenant moved out. — William S. Burroughs

Yes. The original argument is defective. Substitute the word 'male' for 'gay,' and you'll see the flaw: 'Male people cannot be normal. If everyone were male starting tomorrow, the human race would die out, so being male cannot be nature's intended way.' Or you could substitute the word 'female.' In either case, the argument makes no sense: Being male or female is perfectly normal. — Marilyn Vos Savant

In contrast to revenge, which is the natural, automatic reaction to transgression and which, because of the irreversibility of the action process can be expected and even calculated, the act of forgiving can never be predicted; it is the only reaction that acts in an unexpected way and thus retains, though being a reaction, something of the original character of action. — Hannah Arendt

The original Jethro Tull was a 19th century English agriculturist who invented a seed drill you see ... the first automatic process where by small holes were made in Mother Earth and even smaller seeds were deposited one at a time and neetly covered over as a cat does after having being naughty. — Ian Anderson

What is the nature of the guilt that your teachers call his Original Sin? What are the evils man acquired when he fell from a state they consider perfection? Their myth declares that he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge
he acquired a mind and became a rational being. It was the knowledge of good and evil
he became a moral being. He was sentenced to earn his bread by his labor
he became a productive being. He was sentenced to experience desire
he acquired the capacity of sexual enjoyment. The evils for which they damn him are reason, morality, creativeness, joy
all the cardinal values of his existence. It is not his vices that their myth of man's fall is desired to explain and condemn, it is not his errors that they hold as his guilt, but the essence of his nature as man. Whatever he was
that robot of the Garden of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love
he was not man. — Ayn Rand