Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Imitation

• 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.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Suicide, Hope

  "Essays: First Series, Self-Reliance". Book by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1841.

• Envy is ignorance, Imitation is Suicide.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Suicide, Courage, Ignorance

• All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. We quote not only books and proverbs, but arts, sciences, religion, customs, and laws; nay, we quote temples and houses, tables and chairs, by imitation.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Book, Law

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VIII: Letters and Social Aims”, p.94, Harvard University Press

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

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Suicide, Ignorance

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.162, Harvard University Press

• Imitation cannot go above its model.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Imitation, Models

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2001). “Nature, Addresses and Lectures”, p.143, The Minerva Group, Inc.

• In imitation is a bit suicide.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Suicide, Imitation, Bits

• 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?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Chinese, Literature

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2612, Delphi Classics

• In our fine arts, not imitation, but creation is the aim... The details, the prose of nature, he should omit, and give us only the spirit and splendour.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Creativity, Giving

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.157

• 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.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Suicide, Ignorance, Men

• 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?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Travel, Home

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.278, Library of America

• Hence, the less government we have, the better,--the fewer laws, and the less confided power. The antidote to this abuse of formalGovernment, is, the influence of private character, the growth of the Individual; the appearance of the principal to supersede the proxy; the appearance of the wise man, of whom the existing government, is, it must be owned, but a shabby imitation.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Character, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1505, Delphi Classics

• 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.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Country, Sight, Rome

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.66, Harvard University Press

You May Also Like:

Henry David Thoreau

Walt Whitman

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Margaret Fuller

Emily Dickinson

Edgar Allan Poe

Herman Melville