#Imitation Quotes

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

“The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.”

“Report of fashions in proud Italy Whose manners still our tardy-apish nation Limps after in base imitation”

“Envy is ignorance, Imitation is Suicide.”

“The intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is imitation but the travelling of the mind?”

“If you can't imitate him, don't copy him.”

“This fellow pecks up wit, as pigeons peas; And utters it again when God doth please: He is wit's pedler; and retails his wares.”

“Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can offer with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation, but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.”

“Invention, using the term most broadly, and imitation, are the two legs, so to call them, on which the human race historically has walked.”

“Man is essentially the imitative animal. His whole educabilityand in fact the whole history of civilization depend on this trait, which his strong tendencies to rivalry, jealousy, and acquisitiveness reinforce.”

“Each of us is in fact what he is almost exclusively by virtue of his imitative-ness.”

“No living person is sunk so low as not to be imitated by somebody.”

“Imitation cannot go above its model.”

“Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.”

“In imitation is a bit suicide.”

“Nothing is so common as to imitate one's enemies, and to use their weapons.”

“A good imitation is the most perfect originality”

“As long as our people quote English standards they dwarf their own proportions.”

“Man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do.”

“There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide.”

“Is all literature eavesdropping, and all art Chinese imitation? our life a custom, and our body borrowed, like a beggar’s dinner, from a hundred charities?”

“Immitation is suicide.”

“There comes a time in each man's education in which he comes to the conclusion that envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide, and society in in conspiracy against each one of its members.”

“Art creates an incomparable and unique effect, and, having done so, passes on to other things. Nature, upon the other hand, forgetting that that imitation can be made the sincerest form of insult, keeps on repeating this effect until we all become absolutely wearied of it.”

“It is always better to be an original than an imitation.”

“Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.”

“The American who has been confined, in his own country, to the sight of buildings designed after foreign models, is surprised on entering York Minster or St. Peter's at Rome, by the feeling that these structures are imitations also,--faint copies of an invisible archetype.”

“Nature constantly imitates art.”

“Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.”

“There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.”

“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.”

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”

“Imitation is the homage mediocrity pays to greatness.”

“Imitation is the sincerest flattery.”

“There are three arts which are concerned with all things: one which uses, another which makes, and a third which imitates them.”

“I imitate everyone except myself.”

“No country can become a nation by producing a race of imitators.”

“Why should I copy this owl, this sea urchin? Why should I try to imitate nature? I might just as well try to trace a perfect circle.”

“An artist must be very careful not to look for models. As soon as one artist takes another as model, he is lost. There is no other point of departure than reality.”

“Art only begins where Imitation ends.”

“When you make a thing, a thing that is new, it is so complicated making it that it is bound to be ugly. But those that make it after you, they don't have to worry about making it. And they can make it pretty, and so everybody can like it when others make it after you”

“What does it mean for a painter to paint in the manner of So-and-So or to actually imitate someone else? What's wrong with that? On the contrary, it's a good idea. You should constantly try to paint like someone else. But the thing is, you can't! You would like to. You try. But it turns out to be a botch... And it's at the very moment you make a botch of it that you're yourself.”

“While one should always study the method of a great artist, one should never imitate his manner. The manner of an artist is essentially individual, the method of an artist is absolutely universal. The first personality, which no one should copy.”

“Men nearly always follow the tracks made by others and proceed in their affairs by imitation, even though they cannot entirely keep to the tracks of others or emulate the prowess of their models. So a prudent man should always follow in the footsteps of great men and imitate those who have been outstanding.”

“the wise man should always follow the roads that have been trodden by the great, and imitate those who have most excelled, so that if he cannot reach their perfection, he may at least acquire something of its savour.”

“We are creatures of imitation. We find it hard to resist the temptation to do that which we see others doing.”

“Men walk almost always in the paths trodden by others, proceeding in their actions by imitation.”

“A wise man ought always to follow the paths beaten by great men, and to imitate those who have been supreme, so that if his ability does not equal theirs, at least it will savor of it. Let him act like the clever archers who, designing to hit the mark which yet appears too far distant, and knowing the limits to which the strength of their bow attains, take aim much higher than the mark, not to reach by their strength or arrow to so great a height, but to be able with the aid of so high an aim to hit the mark they wish to reach.”

“It is always better to imitate a successful man than to envy him.”

“In literature imitations do not imitate.”