Quotes about imitation

Immature poets imitate mature poets steal.

Your ultimate reason for staying in this crooked world is not to imitate its devastating physique, but trying do something about its ugly appearance.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but theft is a sin.

Most undercover cops are vastly skilled at compartmentalization. It is a talent as valued as lying. They seal off their real feelings and create imitation emotions. Easily torn down when it's time to show the badge, drag someone downtown, and sit across from him in an interrogation cell and tell him how fucked he is now.

Art begins in imitation and ends in innovation.

Of what use were the arts if they were only the reproduction and the imitation of life?

In everything truth surpasses the imitation and copy.

To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.

Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery.

As much as I live I shall not imitate them or hate myself for being different to them

Imitation cannot go above its model.

The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it, because it was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator, something else is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another man's.

The necessity, then, of those “lesser breeds without the law”—those wogs, barbarians, niggers—is this: one must not become more free, not become more base than they: must not be used as they are used, nor yet use them as their abandonment allows one to use them: therefore, they must be civilized. But, when they are civilized, they may simply “spuriously imitate [the civilizer] back again,” leaving the civilizer with no satisfaction on which to rest.

Any local music scene at any point in time can be referred to as derivative of more well-known acts. The line separating influence from imitation is a blurry one. Very few artists are completely original; even great artists build upon what has occurred before, and add their personality and talent to create their own original expression.

Imitation is criticism.

Now, it is of course well known that Christ continually uses the expression 'imitators.' He never says that he asks for admirers, adoring admirers, adherents; and when he uses the expression 'follower' he always explains it in such a way that one perceives that 'imitators' is meant by it, that is not adherents of a teaching but imitators of a life....

Contrary to our metaphors, humans are much more imitative than the other apes. For example: if chimps watch a demonstration on how to get food out of a puzzle box, they, in their turn, skip any unnecessary steps, go straight to the treat. Human children overimitate, reproducing each step regardless of its necessity. There is some reason why, now that it’s our behavior, being slavishly imitative is superior to being thoughtful and efficient, but I forget exactly what that reason is.

Christian pop culture can be worthwhile if done well, but bad Christian pop culture isn't redeemed merely by the fact that it's Christian.

Our historical experience teaches us that men imitate one another, that their attitudes are statistically calculable, their opinions manipulable, and that man is therefore less an individual (a subject) than an element in a mass.

Don't envy what people have, emulate what they did to have it.

Silence is golden but too long a silence an imitation junk

All art is but imitation of nature.

Most people go on living their everyday life: frightened half indifferent they behold the ghostly tragi-comedy that has been performed on the international stage before the eyes and ears of the world.

We are in truth more than a half of what we are by imitation.

When people are free to do as they please they usually imitate each other.

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.

There is a difference between imitating a good man and counterfeiting him.

Every man is a borrower and a mimic life is theatrical and literature a quotation.

We do not imitate but are a model to others.

The crow that mimics a cormorant gets drowned.

We love in others what we lack ourselves and would be everything but what we are.

Immature poets imitate: mature poets steal.

Agesilaus the Spartan king was once invited to hear a mimic imitate the nightingale but declined with the comment that he had heard the nightingale itself.

Fewer things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.

Imitation is the sincerest (form) of flattery.

It is impossible to imitate Voltaire without being Voltaire.

He who imitates what is evil always goes beyond the example that is set on the contrary he who imitates what is good always falls short.

A good imitation is the most perfect originality.

To be as good as our fathers we must be better, imitation is not discipleship.

Don't Copy What Someone Is Doing, Copy What God Wants You To Do.

Without authenticity, we are only a poor imitation of someone else.

An echo has no voice of its own.

In Paris, Julien’s position with regard to Madame de Renal would very soon have been simplified; but in Paris love is the child of the novels. The young tutor and his timid mistress would have found in three or four novels, and even in the lyrics of the Gymnase, a clear statement of their situation. The novels would have outlined for them the part to be played, shown them the model to copy; and this model, sooner or later, albeit without the slightest pleasure, and perhaps with reluctance, vanit

In the haste to imitate an idol, in the race to become someone else, we forget the most important lesson.How to be ourselves.

Nice is a city of ghosts and specters, but I hope not to become one of them right away.

Always be yourself and have faith in yourself. Do not go out and look for a successful personality and try to duplicate it.

Another great mistake is this; another understandable error is this: living to live the footprints of others when you have your own foot! Live your footprints! You were born unique! If possible, put the shoes of others, (they must fit you however) but don't walk as they walked and as much as possible, don't leave the same footprints they left except you were born to be like them or you can change the face of their footprints into a unique artifact!

Never stop learning to be who you are meant to be just because you have found someone and decided to be like him/her.

The desired shape of your dreams is different from the supposed shape of another person’s dream. When shaping your own, you may watch the process of another person’s dreams, but keep eyes away from the destination.

Everyone has limitations. Know that when you always say “I wish I am like someone else”, you are attempting to take alongside someone’s limitation you may not be able to manage.

When you are gunning to be like other people, you are foolishly repeating their mistakes, and the worst of it all is that you can't even correct yours.

The only known technique to an imitator is to steal and rephrase, then with a mischievous smile, he said, "i did it", without any confidence and prove.

As a result of his experiments he concluded that imitation was a real evil that had to be broken before real rhetoric teaching could begin. This imitation seemed to be an external compulsion. Little children didn’t have it. It seemed to come later on, possibly as a result of school itself.That sounded right, and the more he thought about it the more right it sounded. Schools teach you to imitate. If you don’t imitate what the teacher wants you get a bad grade. Here, in college, it was more sophi

An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate.

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 non-existent. And don’t bother concealing

Above all things -- read. Read the great stylists who cannot be copied rather than the successful writers who must not be copied.

But once an original book has been written-and no more than one or two appear in a century-men of letters imitate it, in other words, they copy it so that hundreds of thousands of books are published on exactly the same theme, with slightly different titles and modified phraseology. This should be able to be achieved by apes, who are essentially imitators, provided, of course, that they are able to make use of language.

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.

Imitation is not inspiration, and inspiration only can give birth to a work of art. The least of man's original emanation is better than the best of borrowed thought.

Do not repeat after me words that you do not understand. Do not merely put on a mask of my ideas, for it will be an illusion and you will thereby deceive yourself.

Acquiring knowledge is a form of imitation.

And whenever any one informs us that he has found a man who knows all the arts, and all things else that anybody knows, and every single thing with a higher degree of accuracy than any other man –whoever tells us this, I think that we can only imagine him to be a simple creature who is likely to have been deceived by some wizard or actor whom he met, and whom he thought all-knowing, because he himself was unable to analyze the nature of knowledge and ignorance and imitation.

There must be a certain amount of imitation, copying, in outward technique, but when there is inward, psychological imitation surely we cease to be creative.

You need to make a decision - are you are an imitator or an innovator?

If a creative person steals your idea, he’s killing his creative ability, if he steals your art, he’s killing his art, if he makes it available to the world, it won,t create de impact you could have created, because it wasn’t from the right source.

Imitation is not just the sincerest form of flattery - it's the sincerest form of learning.

Anybody who is imitating somebody else, no matter who it us, is heading in the wrong direction. It is impossible to become like somebody else. Your only hope is to become more fully yourself.

A prudent man will always try to follow in the footsteps of great men and imitate those who have been truly outstanding, so that, if he is not quite as skillful as they, at least some of their ability may rub off on him.

Give me one more night to taste the darkWhen wolves imitate a lone dog's bark Let those secrets remain unspoken Fallen angel's heart now lover's token Light grows dim burying riddle’s death Just breathe to free your one last breath

Anyone that says his mind will be probably regarded a fool, but the true artist is not moved by the comments about the looks of his painting or remarks that are dreadfully sarcastic, but hearken now! That he who says what others want to hear hasn't said anything of his own.

I think the writer is initially set going by literature more than by life. When there are many writers all employing the same idiom, all looking out on more or less the same social scene, the individual writer will have to be more than ever careful that he isn't just doing badly what has already been done to completion. The presence alone of Faulkner in our midst makes a great difference in what the writer can and cannot permit himself to do. Nobody wants his mule and wagon stalled on the same t

To imitate nature involves the verb to do. To copy is merely to reflect something already there, inertly: Shakespeare's mirror is all that is needed for it. But by imitation we enlarge nature itself, we become nature or we discover in ourselves nature's active part.

..if I dont do something on the grand scale, it is that my genius is altogether imitative, and that I have nor recently encountered any very striking models of grandeur.

An original is worth more than a copy.

Originals cost more than imitations.

Be yourself. An original is worth more than a copy.

Parrots mimic their owners. Their owners consider that a sign of intelligence.

Imitation is human intelligence in its most dynamic aspect.

Your original self is worth more than your imitation of someone else.

People can copy anything; your mode of dressing, the way you talk, walk, dance, sing, cry, but they will find it very hard to imitate the way you donate money.

There is only one thing which is generally safe from plagiarism -- self-denial.

Fake sUCKs!

No one want to be an imitation of another

Imitate the traits of your creator

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 non-existent. And don’t bother concealing

Through others we become ourselves.

The great idea is the one that is either saleable or is worthy of imitation.

People are eager to walk in other people's pair of shoes that does not fit them. The result is that, their dreams begin to imitate a "tortoise" walk and that I guess is already uncomfortable!

One of the fundamental causes of the disintegration of society is copying, which is the worship of authority.