originality

[Sadi-Carnot]

"[A] man can no more be completely original [...] than a tree can grow out of air."
— George Bernard Shaw, preface to Major Barbara (50A/1905).

I never had an idea in my life. My so-called inventions already existed in the environment – I took them out. I've created nothing. Nobody does. There's no such thing as an idea being brain-born; everything comes from the outside.
— Thomas Edison

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_m ... st_century