Popular quotes about Imitation! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
Imitation both unconscious and conscious is par excellence the educational method of the family. It is plain that a considerable part of the adaptation of living beings to their environment, i.e., of beings that are born plastic, is passed on from generation to generation through imitation. Were this not so, much if not all of the road traversed by one generation would have to be travelled by the next generation from the very beginning and without short-cuts. Consequently there would be little chance for the novel adaptation, the propitious individual variation, that constitutes progress.
Elsie Clews ParsonsCharyn, like Nabokov, is that most fiendish sort of writer-so seductive as to beg imitation, so singular as to make imitation impossible.
Tom BissellI have come from France more firmly convinced than ever that Negros should write Negro music. We have our own racial feeling and if we try to copy whites we will make bad copiesโฆWe won France by playing music which was ours and not a pale imitation of others, and if we are to develop in America we must develop along our own lines.
James Reese EuropeIf you're playing someone who has lived, there's the risk of imitation, or whether you focus on the essence of who that character was as opposed to physical mannerisms. So, you have to figure out what it is ultimately that this particular adaptation of the story, whether it's fiction or not, is trying to say.
Hayley AtwellModern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble.
George OrwellI would agree with you that there's 90% imitation and 10% innovation. That's true of any genre.
DJ ShadowโThe three of you are enough to drive a mara mad. 'She can wear my shirt,โ" she growled in imitation of Nash."No, she can wear my shirt," she said switching to Tod's smoother tone.Then Sabine took off down the hall without a glance at any of us."I have a spare. Come on, Kaylee, before I choke on testosterone and melodrama.โ
Rachel VincentA tragedy is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself . . . with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.
AristotleIt is possible for science to make the world like the Garden of Eden! Amen. But it is also possible, and sometimes it seems more probable, that science will make the world a very good imitation of hell.
Maude RoydenListening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery. . . . If you want to influence someone, listen to what he says. . . . When he finishes talking, ask him about any points that you do not understand.
Joyce BrothersMen 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.
Niccolo MachiavelliWherever thou goest, whatever thou dost at home, or abroad, in the field, or at church, do all in a desire of union with Christ, in imitation of His tempers and inclinations, and look upon all as nothing, but that which exercises, and increases the spirit and life of Christ in thy soul.
William LawThe apprentice realist uses line as a net to capture his prey, an imitation of reality. But soon he becomes enchanted with line as a thing. It becomes a servant of his pleasure.
Rene HuygheImitation is the surest form of flattery and failure. I am not interested with your talk about my ideas. I am more interested in your applying them to your life. If you do not, then you are essentially not in accord with your own mind.
Miyamoto MusashiWe find collected in this book [The Bible] the superstitious beliefs of the ancient inhabitants of Palestine, with indistinct echoes of Indian and Persian fables, mistaken imitation of Egyptian theories and customs, historical chronicles as dry as they are unreliable and miscellaneous poems, amatory, human and Jewish-national, which is rarely distinguished by beauties of the highest order but frequently by superfluity of expression, coarseness, bad taste, and genuine Oriental sensuality.
Max Nordauwhen the imitation of Christ does not mean to live a life like Christ, but to live your life as authentically as Christ lived his, then there are many ways and forms in which a man can be a Christian.
Henri NouwenAnyone who draws attention to himself as an individual, is viewed with suspicion. We acquired this tendency, of course, from America, and we must resist it: levelling, and imitation of what others are already doing.
Dietrich Fischer-DieskauWhat makes you attractive is being yourself, being natural, being unaware. Even though makeup is important, you should do it all, and then forget about it. You don't want to look like anyone else, any more than you want to be anyone else. You want to look like you. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery - but it's flattering to someone else. Not to you.
Diane von FurstenbergUnfortunately what came out of it was also kind of an imitation community with a lot of mindless conformity.
Bill GriffithThe ideology of this America wants to establish reassurance through Imitation. But profit defeats ideology, because the consumers want to be thrilled not only by the guarantee of the Good but also by the shudder of the Bad.
Umberto EcoI don't have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I'd become. I'm me, and I'm like nobody else.
Lena HorneThe shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all.
Aiden Wilson TozerThe good of the governed is the end, and rewards and punishments are the means, of all government. The government of the supreme and all-perfect Mind, over all his intellectual creation, is by proportioning rewards to piety and virtue, and punishments to disobedience and vice. ... The joys of heaven are prepared, and the horrors of hell in a future state, to render the moral government of the universe perfect and complete. Human government is more or less perfect, as it approaches nearer or diverges further from an imitation of this perfect plan of divine and moral government.
John AdamsModern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional [or scholarly] writers.
George OrwellI had still the ambition, formed in Sligo in my teens, of living in imitation of Thoreau on Innisfree, a little island in Lough Gill, and when walking through Fleet Street very homesick I heard a little tinkle of water and saw a fountain in a shop window which balanced a little ball upon its jet, and began to remember lake water. From the sudden remembrance came my poem Innisfree.
William Butler Yeats