Quotes about Originality
The one thing which seems to me quite impossible is to take into consideration the kind of book one is expected to write; surely one can only write the book that is there to be written. ( Letter to Muriel St. Clare Byrne , 8 September 1935)
— Dorothy Sayers
When I started performing, there was no Internet; I didn't really have anything to copy. I kind of had to just make up what I thought burlesque was, based on photographs of Sally Rand or whatever.
— Dita Von Teese
I object to the actual phrase 'Follow me.' You've gotta be kidding! Why would I want to follow anybody else? Nor do I want them to follow me. The machinations of my life, the banalities - they're mine. They belong to me.
— Holly Hunter
I'm not always the best at picking out what goes together. I always want to be presentable, but more than that, I want to be different. I've never just wanted to follow the crowd. I think that goes back to when I was a boy. If everyone was doing one thing, I'd do something different.
— Tim Tebow
I think Justin Bieber and Zayn have both been listening to me a lot, and they basically wanna be me.
— James Arthur
By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men-that is genius.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
No bird has ever uttered note That was not in some first bird's throat; Since Eden's freshness and man's fall No rose has been original.
— Thomas Bailey Aldrich
No man knows himself as an original.
— Washington Allston
Every man must walk to the beat of his own drummer.
— Henry David Thoreau
To fight in another man's armour is something more than to be influenced by his style of fighting.
— CS Lewis