Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes

There are no original ideas. There are only original people.

Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportianate, the absurd and the forbidden.

One must not imitate what one wants to create.

The greatness of art is not to find what is common but what is unique.

I never look at other people's work. My mind has to be completely focused on my own illusions.

What is genius but the power of expressing a new individuality?

Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it.

You're not gonna write a hundred songs and have a hundred entirely different ideas. It's a matter of finding the ones that are the freshest and most unique.

As an aspiring artist, you should strive for originality of vision. Have something to say and a fresh way of saying it. No story is worth the writing, no picture worth the making, if it’s not the work of the imagination.

Originality is only variation.

People are always talking about originality; but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us; and this goes on to the end. And after all, what can we call our own, except energy, strength, and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be but a small balance in my favor.

Jean Renoir once suggested that most true creators have only one idea and spend their lives reworking it, but then very rapidly he added that most people don't have any ideas at all, so one idea is pretty amazing.

If someone asks me what inspires me, I always say, "That which is missing," because I don't want to copy everything that's already happening. I feel like when you copy, you blend in, and when you blend in, you get lost.

Utter originality is, of course, out of the question.

Imagination is something you do alone.

I knew naturally as a child not to forfeit my creativity to a world that's all laid out for me. I'll look at everything around me and vow to keep in mind that alla this is just someone's idea. It could have just as well been mine.

You've got to concentrate on the business of entertaining and writing songs. Always think different from the next person. Don't ever do a song as you heard somebody else do it.

To be an artist, you have to nurture the things that most people discard.

Creativity occurs in an act of encounter and is to be understood with this encounter as its center.

In the age of mediocrity and clones, John Stowell's uniqueness and originality are a breath of fresh air. I love playing with him.

The world is forever babbling of originality; but there never yet was an original man, in the sense intended by the world; the first man himself--who according to the Rabbins was also the first author--not being an original; the only original author being God.

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone.

The downside of videos is that it will put my vision in front of other people, so they might not get the chance to create their own.

The businessman says 'If I don't do it first, somebody else will.' The artist says 'If I don't do it first, nobody else will.'

Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.