Quotes about Imitation

“Imitation belittles.”

“Imitation is suicide.”

“No man was ever great by imitation.”

“You may imitate, but never counterfeit.”

“Whatever is well said by another, is mine.”

“Posterity weaves no garlands for imitators.”

“Imitation is the sincerest form of television.”

“Simplicity of all things is the hardest to be copy.”

“Nature is commonplace. Imitation is more interesting.”

“To equal a predecessor, one must have twice they worth.”

“Artistic genius is an expansion of monkey imitativeness.”

“Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.”

“To copy others is necessary, but to copy oneself is pathetic.”

“The only good imitations are those that poke fun at bad originals.”

“There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand imitations.”

“We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people.”

“When people are free to do as we please, they usually imitate each other.”

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

“An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.”

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

“Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.”

“To do the opposite of something is also a form of imitation, namely an imitation of its opposite.”

“I have found some of the best reasons I ever had for remaining at the bottom simply by looking at the men at the top.”

“One who imitates what is bad always goes beyond his model; while one who imitates what is good always comes up short of it.”

“Imitation, if it is not forgery, is a fine thing. It stems from a generous impulse, and a realistic sense of what can and cannot be done.”

“Man's natural character is to imitate; that of the sensitive man is to resemble as closely as possible the person whom he loves. It is only by imitating the vices of others that I have earned my misfortunes.”

“It is well to respect the leader. Learn from him. Observe him. Study him. But don't worship him. Believe you can surpass. Believe you can go beyond. Those who harbor the second-best attitude are invariably second-best doers.”

“Man is an idiot. He doesn't know how to do anything without copying, without imitating, without plagiarizing, without aping. It might even have been that man invented generation by coitus after seeing the grasshopper copulate.”

“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. If his own prowess fails to compare with theirs, at least it has an air of greatness about it. He should behave like those archers who, if they are skilful, when the target seems too distant, know the capabilities of their bow and aim a good deal higher than their objective, not in order to shoot so high but so that by aiming high they can reach the target.”