"I now dream that someday we will be able to collect and publish in our language a whole book of original literary products, written directly
in the international language... I believe that one original work,
even if not very good, is much more important and worthy of respect
than the ten best translations of the best national writings, because
only an original work is completely our own property, in form and also
content. Only an original work can prove to the world that our language
is something really alive."
— M.S. Rakitski, Lingvo Internacia, August 1901; quoted in William Auld, Enkonduko en la Originalan Literaturon de Esperanto, p. 15.
This is a translation from Auld's book in Esperanto on the history of original Esperanto literature, well worth reading. (I just re-read it after 25 years). This translated quote appears in Chapter 9, The Literary Scene, of Don Harlow's The Esperanto Book, an introduction to Esperanto literature for English-readers. Re-reading Auld is the first I remember learning of Rakitski. There are other references to him and I may reference more of him. Not everyone believed in the priority of original literature, in 1901 when Esperanto was in its infancy or decades later, so this is historically noteworthy.
This quote was lifted for one intervention in an argument on an unrelated subject with a reactionary nutjob: Can Literature Survive Without Spirituality?
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