Imitator Quotes

• 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.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Music, Men, Mediocrity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1993). “Self-reliance, and Other Essays”, p.114, Courier Corporation

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• Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Motivational, Single

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• The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Mediocrity, Hopeless, Doom

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Portable Emerson”, p.72, Penguin

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• There are three kinds of people: 1. Innovators. 2. Imitators. 3. Idiots.

  Warren Buffett

  Creativity, People, Three

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• Posterity weaves no garlands for imitators.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Imitation, Garlands, Posterity

  "Wallenstein" by Friedrich Schiller, translated by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, (Prologue), 1798.

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• Imitators are a slavish herd and fools in my opinion.

  Jean de La Fontaine

  Imagination, Fool, Opinion

  "Clymène". Book by Jean de La Fontaine, V, 54, 1671.

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• Students must have initiative; they should not be mere imitators. They must learn to think and act for themselves - and be free.

  Cesar Chavez

  Thinking, Students, Initiative

  Lucile Davis, Cesar Chavez (1998). “Cesar Chavez: A Photo-illustrated Biography”, p.22, Capstone

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• The difference between a man who faces death for the sake of an idea and an imitator who goes in search of martyrdom is that whilst the former expresses his idea most fully in death it is the strange feeling of bitterness which comes from failure that the latter really enjoys; the former rejoices in his victory, the latter in his suffering.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Men, Ideas, Differences

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• Never imitate. The mind is an imitator, because imitation is very easy. To be someone is very difficult. To become someone is very easy - all that you need is to be a hypocrite, which is not much of a problem. Deep down you remain the same, but on the surface you go on painting yourself according to some image.

  Rajneesh

  Hypocrite, Mind, Needs

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• I have resolved on an enterprise that has no precedent and will have no imitator. I want to set before my fellow human beings a man in every way true to nature; and that man will be myself.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Men, Want, Way

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• I believe that love--not imitation--is the sincerest form of flattery. Your imitator thinks that you can be duplicated; your lover knows you can't.

  Marilyn vos Savant

  Believe, Thinking, Lovers

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• Find comfort in the knowledge that no imitator ever comes off as well as the original.

  Ann Landers

  Comfort, Imitation, Wells

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• Whoever the master is whom you prefer, this must only be a directive for you. Otherwise you will never be anything but an imitator.

  Paul Cezanne

  Originality, Masters

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• Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

  Oscar Wilde

  Being Yourself, Love Yourself, Taken

  Letter to Alfred Douglas, Jan. - Mar. 1897

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• The sense of inferiority inherent in the act of imitation breeds resentment. The impulse of the imitators is to overcome the model they imitate.

  Eric Hoffer

  Overcoming, Inferiority, Resentment

  Eric Hoffer (1963). “The Ordeal of Change”

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• You get what I call the natural progression, the three Is. The innovators, the imitators, and the idiots.

  Warren Buffett

  Three, Idiot, Progression

  "Warren Buffett: I Haven't Seen As Much Economic Fear In My Adult Lifetime". "Charlie Rose", www.cnbc.com. October 1, 2008.

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• It is not the imitation that makes sons; it is sonship that makes imitators.

  Martin Luther

  Son, Imitation

  "Lectures of Galatians, 1535".

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• What gives the artist real prestige is his imitators.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Real, Artist, Giving

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• Carlyle must undoubtedly plead guilty to the charge of mannerism. He not only has his vein, but his peculiar manner of working it.He has a style which can be imitated, and sometimes is an imitator of himself.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Style, Veins, Peculiar

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.276, Simon and Schuster

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• Imitators? All right! Disciples if you like. But disciples be damned. It's not interesting.

  Pablo Picasso

  Interesting, Disciple, Ifs

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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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• Don`t be imitators. The mind is an imitator, because it is easier to play the game of imitation than to become authentically true. Many ideas have been given to you: become like a Buddha, become like Jesus. become like Krishna - as if you have to become everybody else EXCEPT yourself. As if God is only against you. He`s for Krishna, for Christ, for Mahavir, for Buddha - only against you. Then why does He create you? Then He seems simply foolish. Why does He go on creating you? If He`s interested in Buddha, Hc can create Buddhas. Why you?

  Rajneesh

  Jesus, Games, Play

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• Bring individuality into things, do not just be an imitator. To imitate is to miss life.

  Rajneesh

  Missing, Individuality

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• Children are taught to fear and obey; the avarice, pride, or timidity of parents teaches children economy, arrogance, or submission. They are also encouraged to be imitators, a course to which they are already only too much inclined. No one thinks of making them original, courageous, independent.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Children, Independent, Pride

  Jean de La Bruyère, Luc de Clapiers marquis de Vauvenargues (1903). “La Bruyère and Vauvenargues: Selections from the Characters, Reflexions and Maxims”

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• Imitators are but a servile kind of cattle.

  John Dryden

  Kind, Imitation, Cattle

  Charles-Alphonse Dufresnoy, Sir Joshua Reynolds, John Dryden, Alexander Pope (1783). “The art of painting of Charles Alphonse Du Fresnoy”, p.166

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