Ethan > Ethan's Quotes

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#1

“Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all.”
― Abraham Lincoln

tags: books, originality, unique

2757 likes

#2

“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

tags: authenticity, context, creative-process, creativity, imitation, inspiration, originality, postmodernism, rules, sense-of-wonder, sources, transformation

1624 likes

#3

“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

tags: art, books

2334 likes

#4

“What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing of the origin and destiny of cats?”
― Henry David Thoreau, Thoreau Journal 9

tags: cats, philosophy

162 likes

#5

“If you obey all of the rules, you miss all of the fun.”
― Katharine Hepburn

tags: katharine-hepburn

4416 likes

#6

“People may or may not say what they mean... but they always say something designed to get what they want.”
― David Mamet

49 likes

#7

“We're all put to the test... but it never comes in the form or at the point we would prefer, does it?”
― David Mamet

tags: survival, trial

37 likes

#8

“Invent nothing, deny nothing, speak up, stand up, stay out of school.”
― David Mamet, True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor

tags: acting

23 likes

#9

“I go out there. I'm out there every day. [Pause] There is nothing out there. ”
― David Mamet

18 likes

#10

“...My dad, may he rest in
peace, taught me many wonderful things. And one of the things he taught me was never ask a guy what you do for a living.

He said "If you think about it, when you ask a guy, what do you do you do for a living," you’re saying "how may I gauge the rest of your utterances." are you smarter than I am? Are you richer than I am, poorer than I am?"

So you ask a guy what do you do for a living, it’s the same thing as
asking a guy, let me know what your politics are before I listen to you so
I know whether or not you’re part of my herd, in which case I can nod
knowingly, or part of the other herd, in which case I can wish you dead.”
― David Mamet

tags: charlie-rose-show, father, lesson, profession

31 likes

#11

“The basis of drama is ... is the struggle of the hero towards a specific goal at the end of which he realizes that what kept him from it was, in the lesser drama, civilization and, in the great drama, the discovery of something that he did not set out to discover but which can be seen retrospectively as inevitable. The example Aristotle uses, of course, is Oedipus.”
― David Mamet

tags: drama

13 likes

#12

“Anyone can write five people trapped in a snowstorm. The question is how you get them into the snowstorm. It's hard to write a good play because it's hard to structure a plot. If you can think of it off the top of your head, so can the audience. To think of a plot that is, as Aristotle says, surprising and yet inevitable, is a lot, lot, lot of work.”
― David Mamet

18 likes

#13

“Fox: It's lonely at the top.
Gould: But it ain't crowded.”
― David Mamet, Speed-the-Plow

16 likes

#14

“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”
― Aristotle

tags: friendship, soul

7430 likes

#15

“Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.”
― Aristotle

tags: friendship

1714 likes

#16

“No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.”
― Aristotle

tags: aristotle, genius, great-minds, madness

2739 likes

#17

“A friend to all is a friend to none.”
― Aristotle

tags: friendship

1850 likes

#18

“The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think.”
― Aristotle

tags: truth

685 likes

#19

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”
― Aristotle

tags: art, philosophy

920 likes

#20

“To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man.”
― Aristotle

tags: inspirational, philosophy, writing

660 likes

#21

“If you always attach positive emotions to the things you want, and never attach negative emotions to the things you don't, then that which you desire most will invariably come your way.”
― Matt D. Miller

tags: abundance, attraction, consciousness, empower, empowering, empowerment, encouragement, encouraging, enjoyment, excitement, happiness, inspiration, inspirational, joy, love, passion, prosperity, spiritual, spirituality, truth, truths, universal-law, universal-law-of-attraction, uplifting, vitality

141 likes

#22

“Without darkness, we may never know how bright the stars shine. Without battles, we could not know what victory feels like. Without adversity, we may never appreciate the abundance in our lives. Be thankful, not only for the easy times, but for every experience that has made you who you are.”
― Julie-Anne

tags: abundance, adversity, gratitude, thankfulness

23 likes

#23

“God will overflow your cup, so grab the biggest one you can find.”
― Rob Liano

tags: abundance

12 likes

#24

“The world is already yours - why try to conquer it?”
― Rasheed Ogunlaru

tags: abundance, acceptance, appreciation, conquer, consciousness, contentment, control, controlling, greed, happiness, life-lessons, mindfulness, need, peace, politics, possessions, power, rasheed-ogunlaru-quotes, suffering, wisdom, worldliness

15 likes

#25

“Abundance is the quality of life you live and quality of life you give to others.”
― J.K. Rowling

tags: abundance

8 likes

#26

“The only time you fail is when you fall down and stay down.”
― Stephen Richards, Cosmic Ordering: You can be successful

tags: focus, happiness, law-of-attraction, life-changing, manifestation, millionaire-mindset, mind-power, new-age, opportunity, positivity, self-help, spirituality, stephen-richards, success, visualization, wealth-creation

897 likes

#27

“The discontent and frustration that you feel is entirely your own creation.”
― Stephen Richards, Think Your way to Success: Let Your Dreams Run Free

tags: law-of-attraction, mind-power, money, motivational, new-age, positive-thinking, self-help, stephen-richards, wealth, worthy

413 likes

#28

“If the great internet connects us all ... then why are so many of us becoming increasingly isolated?”
― Stephen Richards

tags: cosmic, cosmic-ordering, law-of-attraction, mind-body-spirit, mind-power, money, new-age, new-thought, positive-thinking, self-help, self-help-book, self-improvement, stephen-richards, wealth, wealth-creation

127 likes

#29

“Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos; the materials must, in the first place, be afforded: it can give form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring into being the substance itself.”
― Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein

tags: chaos, creativity, invention, originality, writing

421 likes

#30

“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

tags: creative-process, creativity, originality, point-of-view, uniqueness, writing

123 likes

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