Ignacy Jan Paderewski Quotes

Even if you try to copy a film shot by shot, you still can't. It's still your own film.

The greatness of an artist or a writer does not depend on what he has in common with other artists and writers, but on what he has peculiar to himself.

I thought that from the moment someone else could do the same as myself, there was no difference between the pictures and they should not be signed. Afterwards I realized it was not so and began to sign my pictures again. Picasso had begun again anyhow.

When I teach writing, I have a mantra: 'Be a first-rate version of yourself, and not a second-rate version of another writer.'

As long as you're true to you, you believe it and you make others believe it, then what you're doing is just art. If you give everybody a blank canvas and some paint, not everybody's picture is going to be exactly the same, but it's still art. I just do what I do.

The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.

The world isn't all happy, shiny people, and great art doesn't come from vanilla. Great art comes from people with a point of view and are very passionate.

You're creating ' it comes from the heart, the spirit, the soul. You're not manufacturing somebody else's plan, somebody else's blueprint, somebody else's idea that's not yours. So when you're creating, that's the beauty side of art, you know? It comes from within you.

You have to add something of yourself to the portrayal.

Music should not be a contest, it should be an individual thing that each band is putting out from within themselves.

The way I work is not the way that you work, and the whole point of any creative act is that. What I have to offer is me, what you have to offer is you, and if you offer yourself with authenticity and generosity I will be moved.

There are lots of artists in the world. But there's only one you. And the only person who has your point of view is you. If you decide not to make things, all you've done is deprive the world of all the stuff that only you could have brought to it.

You can sing only what you are. You can paint only what you are. You must be what your experiences, your environment, and your heredity have made you. For better or for worse, you must play your own little instrument in the orchestra of life.

When everyone starts sounding the same, that's when you know the words and phrases have become clichés. Instead of speaking in clichés, I encourage people just to be themselves, let their passion burn brightly, and go work on things they love spending their time on.

I'm not a guy who likes cliches. I don't think that stereotypes and cliches are the end of the line, when it comes to a performance.

Do not imitate one another's style. If you do, so far as your art is concerned you will be called a grandson, rather than the son of Nature.

It is hard to utter common notions in an individual way.

My style is personal, my style of writing is personal, and I believe in that. I believe what comes out of me is an individual thing, and that's why I, I believe in the individual.

Imitation is for shirkers, like-minded-ness for the comfort lovers, unifying for the creators.

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

Whatever you do with your life-whatever you end up achieving or not achieving-the great gift you have in you to give to the world is the gift of who you alone are; your way of seeing things, and saying things, and feeling about things, that is like nobody else’s. If so much as a single one of you were missing, there would be an empty place at the great feast of life that nobody else in all creation could fill.

I think the key to great art and great artists is to just fully be yourself and not be scared of that, and be the extremes of your personality. Show the extremes of your personality and embrace the imperfections. Embrace the things about yourself that you might not like.

I don't want ever to be guilty of what my critics claim: doing formula without original elements.

No age is compelled to take its beauty from preceding epochs.

My style is all to myself.