Imitation Quotes

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

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

Imitation is the sincerest (form) of flattery.

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.

Albert Einstein

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

Lord Chesterfield

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

Eric Hoffer

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

Samuel Johnson

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

Benjamin Franklin

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

We do not imitate but are a model to others.

Pericles

The crow that mimics a cormorant gets drowned.

Japanese Proverb

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

R. H. Stoddard

Immature poets imitate: mature poets steal.

Philip Massinger

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.

Plutarch

It is impossible to imitate Voltaire without being Voltaire.

Frederick the Great

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.

Francesco Guicciardini

A good imitation is the most perfect originality.

Voltaire

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!

Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

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

Bruce Lee

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, vanity would have compelled Julien to follow.In a small town of the Aveyron or the Pyrenees, the slightest incident would have been made decisive by the ardour of the climate. Beneath our more sombre skies, a penniless young man, who is ambitious only because the refinement of his nature puts him in need of some of those pleasures which money provides, is in daily contact with a woman of thirty who is sincerely virtuous, occupied with her children, and never looks to novels for examples of conduct. Everything goes slowly, everything happens by degrees in the provinces: life is more natural.

Stendhal

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

Tom Hayes

An echo has no voice of its own.

Marty Rubin

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

Cyc Jouzy

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

Nadun Lokuliyanage

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

Joyce Brothers

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.

James Baldwin

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.

Stephen Tow

Imitation is criticism.

William Blake

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.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Imitation cannot go above its model.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

Orhan Pamuk

If you choose to be fearless, then be fearlessly authentic not an imitation of someone you envy.

Shannon L. Alder

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.

Karen Joy Fowler

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....

Søren Kierkegaard

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

Michael Bassey Johnson

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

Elena

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.

Charlie Huston

Silence is golden but too long a silence an imitation junk

Amit Abraham

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.

Milan Kundera

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.

Kevin Roose

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

Tim Fargo

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.

Michael Bassey Johnson

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.

Israelmore Ayivor

You go into extinction by being obsessed about becoming something else and then travelling in the wrong car while your real self keeps waiting at the bus stop for your unfulfilled return!

Israelmore Ayivor

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

Israelmore Ayivor

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.

Israelmore Ayivor

A man who wants to imitate the life of a woman will invariably do some mischief

Bangambiki Habyarimana

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 track the Dixie Limited is roaring down.

Flannery O'Connor

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.

Michael Bassey Johnson

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.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

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

Stewart Stafford

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 your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take the

Jim Jarmusch

Through others we become ourselves.

Lev S. Vygotsky

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

Jiddu Krishnamurti

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

Amit Kalantri

The hope is indeed that some will experience and believe: The purpose of a number of spiritual gurus is to demonstrate to God-fearing men faux spirituality.

Criss Jami

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!

Israelmore Ayivor

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

Matshona Dhliwayo

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.

Michael Bassey Johnson

Imitation is human intelligence in its most dynamic aspect.

René Girard

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Imitation Quotes

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