Originality Creativity Quotes & Sayings

To prepare youth for success in entrepreneurial (and free) cultures, education tends to emphasize originality, creativity, breadth, depth and leadership skills rather than rote memorization, standardized curricula or socialization. The latter skill set is vital in societies with strong upper classes employing the lower castes, but the former is essential to free democratic nations. — Oliver DeMille

No original thought still exists. People are original, each one of them. The same ideas that others had before you are waiting for you to bring them back to life in a new way. The part of who you are that is left behind within these old ideas is what makes them original all over again. — Ashly Lorenzana

Pseudo-artists think that being an artist means opposing whatever seems to be an establishment. That is not creative at all. True creativity is the ability to gain perspective wherever you may have missed it before. — Criss Jami

Stand up.
Stand out.
Stand firm.
Stand strong. — Matshona Dhliwayo

I would rather be a real Timex than a fake Rolex. — N.M. Silber

When most of the greatest individuals in history were misunderstood and you've spent so much of your own adult life misunderstood, you can't help but believe that the majority of people know very little worth knowing. — Criss Jami

Knock-offs may look good, but they never last as long as the real thing. — N.M. Silber

Creativity is the defeat of habit by originality. — Arthur Koestler

Detach the writer from the milieu where he has experienced his greatest sense of belonging, and you have created a discontinuity within his personality, a short circuit in his identity. The result is his originality, his creativity comes to an end. He becomes the one-book novelist or the one-trilogy writer. — Henry Roth

An invitation to innovation, Radiant Orchid encourages expanded creativity and originality, which is increasingly valued in today's society. — Leatrice Eiseman

What India expected of its artists was craft skill, not creativity; conformity to tradition, not originality — Abraham Eraly

Now in creative thought common sense is a bad master. Its sole criterion for judgement is that the new ideas shall look like the old ones. In other words it can only work by suppressing originality. — Alfred North Whitehead

If it aint broke, break it. Then build something better. — Jonathan Culver

There is nothing higher-class than real craftsmanship, diversity, originality and the service of skilled human hands. — Bryant McGill

If you walk along the street you will encounter a number of scientific problems. Of these, about 80 per cent are insoluble, while 19½ per cent are trivial. There is then perhaps half a per cent where skill, persistence, courage, creativity and originality can make a difference. It is always the task of the academic to swim in that half a per cent, asking the questions through which some progress can be made. — Hermann Bondi

There is no such thing as group originality, group creativity or group perspicacity. — Edwin Land

Originality of mind untainted,
And enthusiasm for life, unlimited. — Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything. — George Lois

What tender and devoted mother wouldn't be dismayed and ill with terror at her son's or daughter's stepping even one hair's breath off the beaten track. No, better let him be happy and live in comfort without originality, is what every mother thinks when she rocks the cradle. The only person among us who can fail to reach the general's rank is the original man - in other words, the man who won't be quiet. — Fyodor Dostoevsky

We are all feeding from each other, all the time, every day. — Dave Eggers

The general advertisers and their agencies know almost nothing for sure, because they cannot measure the results of their advertising. They worship at the altar of creativity, which really means 'originality': The most dangerous word in the lexicon of advertising — David Ogilvy

Think outside the box? Indeed. But to add balance to that, one should not in the process forget what the inside of the box looks like as well. Those who are best at thinking outside the box do it not to puff themselves up, but to see how small they really are. As a contented fish in its fish tank appears to have a small, boring existence to us, imagine a larger, more perceptive kingdom (even by scientific taxonomy) to whom our contented existences may appear to be small and boring. This is where true creativity and massive perceptive abilities spawn a sense of intellectual humility; the kind which God adores. — Criss Jami

Artistry, perhaps, is at its core being able to control change in interesting ways. — Jeff Ryan

Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality. — Beatrix Potter

Solitude is the soil in which genius is planted, creativity grows, and legends bloom; faith in oneself is the rain that cultivates a hero to endure the storm, and bare the genesis of a new world, a new forest. — Mike Norton

The invention of IQ did a great disservice to creativity in education ... Individuality, personality, originality, are too precious to be meddled with by amateur psychiatrists whose patterns for a "wholesome personality" are inevitably their own. — Joel Henry Hildebrand

Anymore, no one's mind is their own. — Chuck Palahniuk

Up until relatively recently, creating original characters from scratch wasn't a major part of an author's job description. When Virgil wrote The Aeneid, he didn't invent Aeneas; Aeneas was a minor character in Homer's Odyssey whose unauthorized further adventures Virgil decided to chronicle. Shakespeare didn't invent Hamlet and King Lear; he plucked them from historical and literary sources. Writers weren't the originators of the stories they told; they were just the temporary curators of them. Real creation was something the gods did.
All that has changed. Today the way we think of creativity is dominated by Romantic notions of individual genius and originality, and late-capitalist concepts of intellectual property, under which artists are businesspeople whose creations are the commodities they have for sale. — Lev Grossman

Those who say there are no more original ideas need to get out of the way of those of us who are creating them. — Steven Symes

The best way to be original is to not copy anyone. — Sebastyne Young

When you have wit of your own, it's a pleasure to credit other people for theirs. — Criss Jami

It is not commercial success but originality and proof of autonomy which are admired. — Angela Phillips

Creativity is not simply originality and unlimited freedom. There is much more to it than that. Creativity also imposes restrictions. While it uses methods other than those of ordinary thinking, it must not be in disagreement with ordinary thinking-or rather, it must be something that, sooner or later, ordinary thinking will understand, accept, and appreciate. Otherwise the result would be bizarre, not creative. — Silvano Arieti

If a man were to look over the fence on one side of his garden and observe that the neighbor on his left had laid his garden path round a central lawn; and were to look over the fence on the other side of his garden and observe that the neighbor on his right had laid his path down the middle of the lawn, and were then to lay his own garden path diagonally from one corner to the other, that man's soul would be lost. Originality is only to be praised when not prefaced by the look to right and left. — Quentin Crisp

Time and time over it is the ones who try a little too hard to be innovative rebels - and for the sheer glory of being considered innovative rebels - who then turn out not quite as innovative or as rebellious as they would like to think they are. — Criss Jami

Creativity starts with a little touch of insanity and culminates with the highest trust on its beauty, but throughout it maintains the hands of originality,humanity and ALMIGHTY. — Anuj

What heightens ingenuity heightens productivity.
What heightens creativity heightens originality. — Matshona Dhliwayo

The greater your creativity, the greater your originality. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Perfectionism is the satin-lined casket of creativity and originality. If — Augusten Burroughs

Just keep thinking about the good side of ADD - the creativity and the originality it can stimulate. — David Neeleman

All genuinely creative ideas are initially met with rejection, since they necessarily threaten the status quo. An enthusiastic reception for a new idea is a sure sign that it is not original. — Eric Weiner

Fashion is simply a guideline for style-less people to appear stylish. — Criss Jami

Creativity is easy.
Originality is difficult.
Relevance is a bitch. — Mark Rude

We can never be entirely original, as artists or as people. The genius and vision of those who came before us is too great for us to digress from entirely. Though, as creatures that are compelled to test and surpass our own creative abilities, we must always strive for that originality in everything we do in order to move the world forward. — Jessica Lave

People who copy you will always be one step behind. — Wayne Gerard Trotman

It is not possible to be original by trying to be original - those who attempt this in the arts will be merely avant-garde. Originality is the product of an impulse to intense and overwhelming that it bursts the conventions and produces something new - again more by accident than design. — Michael Foley

but it can't tell you where you ought to go, unless where you ought to go is a continuation of where you were going in the past. Creativity, originality, inventiveness, intuition, imagination - "unstuckness," in other words - are completely outside its domain. We — Robert M. Pirsig

The principal mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers. — Arthur Koestler

Originality is the best form of rebellion. — Mike Sasso

To be an artist and to be recognized by another artist who is, you know, just something you can't even put into words, someone that is so far beyond what the normal human being experience is in terms of creativity and originality. That was kind of a moment where I thought wow maybe I do have something more that makes me special. — Misty Copeland

Creativity is the art of concealing your sources. — Coco Chanel

Originality and creativity are nothing but the result of the wise management of combinations. The creative genius combines more rapidly, and with a greater critical sense of what gets tossed out and what gets saved, the same material that the failed genius has to work with. — Umberto Eco

Each of us is an artist of our days; the greater our integrity and awareness, the more original and creative our time will become. — John O'Donohue

Creative people are often found either disagreeable or intimidating by mediocrities. — Criss Jami

Creativity is the ability to produce ideas that are both original and valuable. — Gerard Puccio

Perfection is the satin-lined casket of creativity and originality. If you are a perfectionist, at least stop telling everybody you're one and try to get over it yourself, alone in your home with the lights off — Augusten Burroughs

Creativity sparks originality which then manifests itself into what we call evolution. To depreciate imagination is to depreciate life. — Alecia Stone

Originality has nothing to do with producing something ' new' - it is about seeking the source, the primordial ground from which you draw and have always drawn your being. It comes about when one works from one's origins, it is the dance of the eternal return ... and is as ancient as the Dreamtime. — Billy Marshall Stoneking

Follow your dreams, not the crowd. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Everything which one invents is true, be sure of it. — Gustave Flaubert

After some time passed in studying - and even imitating - the works of others, I would recommend the student to endeavour to be original, and to remember that originality should not be undiscovered plagiarism. — Henry Peach Robinson

Small business people have gotten us out of nearly all modern recessions - not by waiting for others to fix things or turning to government, but rather by applying leadership, inventiveness, creativity and originality. — Oliver DeMille

You have to do stuff that average people don't understand because those are the only good things. — Andy Warhol

But I should caution that if you seek to plot out all your moves before you make them - if you put your faith in slow, deliberative planning in the hopes it will spare you failure down the line - well, you're deluding yourself. For one thing, it's easier to plan derivative work - things that copy or repeat something already out there. So if your primary goal is to have a fully worked out, set-in-stone plan, you are only upping your chances of being unoriginal. — Ed Catmull

Every man has a specific skill, whether it is discovered or not, that more readily and naturally comes to him than it would to another, and his own should be sought and polished. He excels best in his niche - originality loses its authenticity in one's efforts to obtain originality. — Criss Jami

Originality is the essence of true scholarship. Creativity is the soul of the true scholar. — Nnamdi Azikiwe

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don't bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: "It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to."
[MovieMaker Magazine #53 - Winter, January 22, 2004 ] — Jim Jarmusch

Create with the heart; build with the mind. — Criss Jami

Originality brings more bumps in the road, yet it leaves us with more happiness and a greater sense of meaning. — Adam Grant

Nothing is new except arrangement. — Will Durant

Every story has already been told. Once you've read Anna Karenina, Bleak House, The Sound and the Fury, To Kill a Mockingbird and A Wrinkle in Time, you understand that there is really no reason to ever write another novel. Except that each writer brings to the table, if she will let herself, something that no one else in the history of time has ever had.
[Commencement Speech; Mount Holyoke College, May 23, 1999] — Anna Quindlen

Yes, be different, but not for the vanities of being different. — Criss Jami

The value of an artist is more because of his originality than his skill. — Amit Kalantri

Absurdity and anti - absurdity are the two poles of creative energy. — Karl Lagerfeld

Insanity is coasting through life in a miserable existence when you have a caged lion locked inside and the key to release it. — Morgan Freeman

Creativity, which is the expression of our originality, helps us stay mindful that what we bring to the world is completely original and cannot be compared. — Brene Brown

Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos. — Mary Shelley

With cold eyes and indifferent mind the spectators regard the work. Connoissers admire the "skill" (as one admires a tightrope walker), enjoy the "quality of painting" (as one enjoys a pasty). But hungry souls go hungry away. The vulgar herd stroll through the rooms and pronounce the pictures "nice" or "splendid." Those who could speak have said nothing, those who could hear have heard nothing. — Wassily Kandinsky

The human spirit's unquenchable drive for originality and compulsion for creating art is the compelling force of our humanity. — Kilroy J. Oldster