Three lectures (1030, 1051, 1370), and it is how Neville disposes of the question of authorship - his own included. Prompted at 1370 by Ted Kennedy quoting Shaw without credit, he does not correct the omission but dismisses the category: he may not have given credit - at a moment like that why quote any name? After all, the most original thought in the world is divine plagiarism, for all things proceed from God. No matter how original the thought seems to be, it comes out of the mind of God. The phrase is not a joke about borrowing; it follows from creation being finished, since a thought that already exists cannot be invented by the man who finds it. That is why he can quote Blake, Shaw, Shakespeare and an anonymous letter-writer in the same lecture without ranking them, and why he tells his own audience to write the narrative themselves and leave the speaker out. PROVENANCE. Coined out of sequence at the request of the attach lane, which found the passages while attaching other motifs and reported that nothing in the catalogue held them. The canonical and the occurrences below were read in full before coining; the rest of the corpus-wide set was supplied by the lane and is attached, not read, so the occurrences here carry confidence 0.95 rather than 0.99.
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Own wordings
the most original thought in the world is divine plagiarism, for all things proceed from God
Occurrences
LectureImagination, the Real Man
the most original thought in the world is divine plagiarism, for all things proceed from God. No matter how original the thought seems to be, it comes out of the mind of God.
Span from: 503
to: 677
Passage revision:
623774