"A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times"
About this Quote
Originality, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. suggests, is not a one-time event but a living process. A thought retains its freshness even after many utterances because the speaker, the context, and the listeners keep changing. What seems like repetition is often a deepening. Each restatement tests nuance, adds a shade of meaning, or reveals a connection that was impossible earlier. The mind is not the same mind every time, and a thought is not a fixed artifact; it is a trajectory.
Holmes, the Boston physician-poet famous for his conversational essays in The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, understood the workshop of talk. Around a table, ideas are kneaded, challenged, and seasoned by company. He distrusted both stale platitudes and the cult of novelty for noveltys sake. He knew that a living idea survives repeated handling precisely because it is responsive to reality. The difference between parroting and original thinking is attention. When you say something with renewed attention, you make it again.
This is the teacher who discovers a new emphasis on the tenth lecture, the musician who uncovers a hidden phrase on the hundredth performance, the scientist whose hypothesis gains clarity through iterative trial, the parent whose familiar advice takes on new truth in a childs crisis. Even a simple affirmation such as I love you becomes original each time because it answers a new moment.
The line also corrects a common anxiety among writers and speakers: that revisiting the same theme is derivative. It urges fidelity to the core concern and patience with its unfolding. Depth comes from turning an idea over until it throws light from every facet. If an audience is new, the thought is new to them; if the audience is the same, you have changed. Either way, the act of utterance is creative, and originality, far from being exhausted by frequency, is proven by endurance.
Holmes, the Boston physician-poet famous for his conversational essays in The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, understood the workshop of talk. Around a table, ideas are kneaded, challenged, and seasoned by company. He distrusted both stale platitudes and the cult of novelty for noveltys sake. He knew that a living idea survives repeated handling precisely because it is responsive to reality. The difference between parroting and original thinking is attention. When you say something with renewed attention, you make it again.
This is the teacher who discovers a new emphasis on the tenth lecture, the musician who uncovers a hidden phrase on the hundredth performance, the scientist whose hypothesis gains clarity through iterative trial, the parent whose familiar advice takes on new truth in a childs crisis. Even a simple affirmation such as I love you becomes original each time because it answers a new moment.
The line also corrects a common anxiety among writers and speakers: that revisiting the same theme is derivative. It urges fidelity to the core concern and patience with its unfolding. Depth comes from turning an idea over until it throws light from every facet. If an audience is new, the thought is new to them; if the audience is the same, you have changed. Either way, the act of utterance is creative, and originality, far from being exhausted by frequency, is proven by endurance.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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