Eric Hoffer Originality Quotations

Originality is deliberate and forced, and partakes of the nature of a protest.

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. Originality is deliberate and forced, and partakes of the nature of a protest. A society which gives unlimited freedom to the individual, more often than not attains a disconcerting sameness.

To overestimate the originality of one's thoughts is perhaps a less serious defect than being unaware of their newness. There is a more pronounced lack of sensitivity in underestimating (ourselves and others) than in overestimating.

Our originality shows itself most strikingly not in what we wholly originate but in what we do with that which we borrow from others.