Nothing is original (great quote)

by | Thursday, June 10, 2010


Unoriginal

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 nonexistent. 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.” — Jim Jarmusch

More Jim Jarmusch quotes here. Nice design of a layout for this quote here. Photo credit Emily Smith from flickr.

Topics related to this post: Art | Creativity | Film | Fun | Philosophy | Plagiarism

A few randomly selected blog posts…

Why teachers should care about beauty in science

Why teachers should care about beauty in science

Figure 1. “We are a way for the universe to know itself” - Carl SaganScience is one of the most powerful ways to engage with the beauty of the universe.We use science to understand the cosmos and, in the process,find beauty in our understandings and...

A Silver Lining side conversation with S. Giridhar:

A Silver Lining side conversation with S. Giridhar:

S. Giridhar (Giri), Chief Operating Officer of Azim Premji University (APU) and I had a chance to chat for a Silver Lining for Learning side conversation. Giri is a good friend and we connect at multiple levels. We both went to the same undergraduate institution (BITS...

Death & Taxes

I am always on the lookout for new and interesting visual representations of complex data and just discovered Death & Taxes, 2009: "is a representational poster of the federal discretionary budget; the amount of money that is spent at the discretion of your elected...

APA & Torture

I had written previously (here and here) about the American Psychological Association's long connection with torture and other coercive information gathering techniques. I am still bothered by it. Today's NYTimes has a op-ed by Stanley Fish (titled Psychology and...

Quest 2 Learn conference in Bangalore & more

Quest 2 Learn conference in Bangalore & more

I just got back from a lovely few days in Bangalore. I was there to participate in the Quest 2 Learn Annual Summit organized by the Quest Alliance. Convened at the  National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), on the campus of the Indian Institute of...

Happy New Year (and a new illusory video)

Happy New Year (and a new illusory video)

Since 2008 we have been creating short videos to welcome in the New Year. These videos, created on a shoe-string budget, are usually typographical in nature with some kind of an optical illusion or aha! moment built in. Check out our latest creation to welcome 2019...

Systems level change in education

Systems level change in education

How do you design for change in complex systems—like education? Implementing large-scale changes within educational systems can be a challenging task. Doing so requires many actors, working at different organizational levels (and perhaps across organizations), to not...

New optical illusion: An oscillating visual paradox!

New optical illusion: An oscillating visual paradox!

A design for the word "illusions" inspired by a design by Scott Kim.  I have been obsessed with optical illusions for for a long time. This interest has played out in many ways: from the hundreds of ambigrams I have created to the new year’s videos we create as a...

3 Comments

  1. Punya Mishra

    @George, You are very welcome.
    @Joradan, thanks for regularly visiting the site and your comments.

    Reply
  2. George

    Thanks for the linkback.

    Reply

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *