imitation

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

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

Imitation is the sincerest (form) of flattery.

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

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!

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

In Paris, Julien__ 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.

An echo has no voice of its own.

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

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

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

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

The necessity, then, of those __esser breeds without the law___hose wogs, barbarians, niggers__s 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 __puriously 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.

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.

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