Imitation Quotes - Page 5

• Artistic genius is an expansion of monkey imitativeness.

  William Winwood Reade

  Expansion, Genius, Monkeys

  William Winwood Reade (1874). “The Martyrdom of Man”, p.394

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• He who studies to imitate the poet Pindar, O Julius, relies on artificial wings fastened on with wax, and is sure to give his name to a glassy sea.

  Horace

  Sea, Names, Wings

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, p. 387-88, Carmina, IV, 2, 1, 1922.

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• Since a true knowledge of nature gives us pleasure, a lively imitation of it, either in poetry or painting, must produce a much greater; for both these arts are not only true imitations of nature, but of the best nature.

  John Dryden

  Art, Giving, Painting

  John Dryden, John Mitford (1836). “The Works of John Dryden: In Verse and Prose, with a Life”, p.332

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• No single character is ever so great that a nation can afford to form itself upon it. Imitation belittles. This appears in the instance of the Chinese. The Chinese are so many Confucii; in miniature. And so with the Jews. Moses, the lawgiver, is poorly represented by Moses, the old clothesman ; or even by Dives, the hanker.

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Character, Chinese, Moses

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• EVERY MOMENT IN business happens only once. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them.

  Peter Thiel

  Business, Learning, Zuckerberg

  Peter Thiel, Blake Masters (2014). “Books Summary: Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future”, p.2, Best Books on

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

  Wendell Phillips

  Fathers Day, Dad, Father Son

  Wendell Phillips (1864). “Speeches, Lectures, and Letters”, p.231

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• Never hesitate to imitate another writer. Imitation is part of the creative process for anyone learning an art or a craft. Bach and Picasso didn't spring full-blown as Bach or Picasso; they needed models. This is especially true of writing.

  William Zinsser

  Art, Spring, Writing

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• One must not imitate the sun, one must make oneself into a sun.

  Raoul Dufy

  Sun, Oneself

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• When Picasso paints as a cubist, putting one tone next to another, the arrangement of planes is fine and the results very storng. But those who imitate him achieve nothing worthwhile.

  Aristide Maillol

  Next, Tone, Achieve

  "Artists on Art, from the 14 to 20 Centuries". Book edited by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves, p. 407, 1972.

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• We all begin life as parasites within the mother, and writers begin their existence imitatively, within the body of letters.

  John Updike

  Mother, Body, Letters

  JOHN UPDIKE (1965). “ASSORTED PROSE”

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• By close inspection... you will discover the manner of handling the artifices of contrast, glazing, and other expedients, by which good colorists have raised the value of their tints, and by which nature has been so happily imitated.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Inspection, Raised, Contrast

  Sir Joshua Reynolds (1860). “The Life and Writings of Sir Joshua Reynolds: First President of the Royal Academy”

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• Universities are filled with poets and novelists conducting demure and careful lives in imitation of Eliot and Forster and those others who (through what seems to be have been discretion) made it.

  Gore Vidal

  Novelists, Poet, Conducting

  Gore Vidal (1968). “Sex, Death, and Money”

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• If Picasso drips, I drip... For a long while I was with Cezanne, and now I am with Picasso.

  Arshile Gorky

  Long, Cezanne, Ifs

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• It is not the how of painting but the why. To imitate a style would be a little like teaching a tone of voice or a personality.

  Ben Shahn

  Teaching, Voice, Personality

  BEN SHAHN (1957). “THE SHAPE OF CONTENT”

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• Don`t imitate: imitation creates falsity, pseudo-ness, inauthenticity. Just feel your own way and don`t bother about what others say. It is nobody else`s business. Don`t bother about what churches say, organizations say - listen to your own heart.

  Rajneesh

  Heart, Organization, Church

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• If you imitate the forms of a single artist through constant practice, your intelligence would have to be crude indeed for you not to get some nourishment from them.

  Cennino Cennini

  Artist, Practice, Form

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• Imitation is the greatest danger of the young [artist].

  Alexey Brodovitch

  Artist, Danger, Young

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• Imitation pleases, because it affords matter for inquiring into the truth or falsehood of imitation, by comparing its likeness or unlikeness with the original.

  John Dryden

  Matter, Inquiring, Compare

  John Dryden (1800). “The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden: Now First Collected: with Notes and Illustrations; an Acount of the Life and Writing of the Author, Grounded on Original and Authentick Documents; and a Collection of His Letters, the Greater Part of which Has Never Before Been Published”, p.323

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• We are all easily taught to imitate what is base and depraved.
  [Lat., Dociles imitandis
  Turpibus ac pravis omnes sumus.]

  Juvenal

  Taught, Depraved

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• It is by imitation, far more than by precept, that we learn everything; and what we learn thus, we acquire not only more effectually, but more pleasantly.

  Edmund Burke

  Acquire

  Edmund Burke (1834). “The Works of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke: With a Biographical and Critical Introduction, and Portrait After Sir Joshua Reynolds”, p.36

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• Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

  T. S. Eliot

  Art, Writing, Reading Poetry

  The Sacred Wood "Philip Massinger" (1920)

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• Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination.

  Jim Jarmusch

  Inspiration, Stealing Things, Imagination

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• 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.

  Frank Moore Colby

  Integrity, Men, Ethics

  Frank Moore Colby (1926). “Tailor blood and other notes and comments”

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• Imitate until you emulate; match and surpass those who launched you. It's the highest form of thankfulness.

  Mark Victor Hansen

  Inspirational, Motivational, Thankful

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• Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

  James A. Baldwin

  Family, Education, Wisdom

  Nobody Knows My Name (1961) "Fifth Avenue, Uptown: a letter from Harlem"

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