Quotes: Imitation

All bad Literature rests upon imperfect insight, or upon imitation, which may be defined as seeing at second-hand.

Of what use were the arts if they were only the reproduction and the imitation of life?

Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it. No painting or drawing, however naturalist, belongs to its subject in the way that a photograph does.

The false is nothing but an imitation of the true.

Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.

There are works of literature whose influence is strong but indirect because it is mediated through the whole of the culture rather than immediately through imitation. Wordsworth is the case that comes to mind.

I 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.

To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

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

Unfortunately what came out of it was also kind of an imitation community with a lot of mindless conformity.