Imitator Quotes

I get to study and I got to mimic and what I basically did was I stole from every person that I could steal from. I was an imitator. That's what I was. It was years before I could take all of these things that I loved about all of these different artists and put them together and find my voice. ~ Michael Buble

Most imitators attempt the inimitable. ~ Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach

The only known technique to an imitator is to steal and rephrase, then with a mischievous smile, he said, "i did it", without any confidence and prove. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

Far from being a paradox, this invitation is more reasonable than that of our modern gurus, who ask their disciples to imitate them as the great man or woman who imitates no one. Jesus, by contrast, invites us to do what he himself does, to become like him a perfect imitator of God the Father. ~ Rene Girard

Posterity weaves no garlands for imitators. ~ Friedrich Schiller

Who was that fatman buried in your place? Just another imitator, plastic surgeons did his face. ~ Loudon Wainwright III

I have entered upon a performance which is without example, whose
accomplishment will have no imitator. I mean to present my
fellow-mortals with a man in all the integrity of nature; and this man
shall be myself.

I know my heart, and have studied mankind; I am not made like any one I
have been acquainted with, perhaps like no one in existence; if not
better, I at least claim originality, and whether Nature did wisely in
breaking the mould with which she formed me, can only be determined after
having read this work.

Whenever the last trumpet shall sound, I will present myself before the
sovereign judge with this book in my hand, and loudly proclaim, thus have
I acted; these were my thoughts; such was I. With equal freedom and
veracity have I related what was laudable or wicked, I have concealed no
crimes, added no virtues; and if I have sometimes introduced superfluous
ornament, it was merely to occupy a void occasioned by defect of memory:
I may have supposed that certain, which I only knew to be probable, but
have never asserted as truth, a conscious falsehood. Such as I was, I
have declared myself; sometimes vile and despicable, at others, virtuous,
generous and sublime; even as thou hast read my inmost soul: Power
eternal! assemble round thy throne an innumerable throng of my
fellow-mortals, let them listen to my confessions, let them blush at my
depravity, ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I was a pretty good imitator of Roy Acuff, but then I found out they already had a Roy Acuff, so I started singin' like myself. ~ Hank Williams

The funny thing about our act is that dad gets the worst of it, although I'm the one who apparently receives the bruises ... the secret is in landing limp and breaking the fall with a foot or a hand. It's a knack. I started so young that landing right is second nature with me. Several times I'd have been killed if I hadn't been able to land like a cat. Imitators of our act don't last long, because they can't stand the treatment. ~ Buster Keaton

Cafe society is as old as the hills. Starbucks and its imitators are the coffee face of the new man in a hurry. ~ Ian Anderson

I can learn from the preachers of the past, and should; but I must not be a slavish imitator of them. ~ D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

I rarely play a real person, because I don't think I'm a good imitator. ~ Harrison Ford

I do not know if Alice in Wonderland was an original story-I was, at least, no conscious imitator in writing it-but I do know that, since it came out, something like a dozen story-books have appeared, on identically the same pattern. The path I timidly explored believing myself to be 'the first that ever burst into that silent sea'-is now a beaten high-road: all the way-side flowers have long ago been trampled into the dust: and it would be courting disaster for me to attempt that style again. ~ Lewis Carroll

Science ... has no consideration for ultimate purposes, any more than Nature has, but just as the latter occasionally achieves things of the greatest suitableness without intending to do so, so also true science, as the imitator of nature in ideas, will occasionally and in many ways further the usefulness and welfare of man,-but also without intending to do so. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Tremble with awe, O men! The insults God suffered for the sake of our salvation you too must endure! God is slapped on the face by the basest of slaves (Jn. 18:22). He gives you an example of victory, yet do you refuse to undergo this at the hands of a man of like passions as yourself? You are ashamed of becoming an imitator of God (Eph. 5:1), how then will you reign with Him and share in His glory in the kingdom of heaven if you do not endure that man? ~ Symeon The New Theologian

Be a creator not an imitator, competitor, or pretender. Real success happens when you create, collaborate, and dominate. ~ Farshad Asl

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

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

Now, it is of course well known that Christ continually uses the expression 'imitators.' He never says that he asks for admirers, adoring admirers, adherents; and when he uses the expression 'follower' he always explains it in such a way that one perceives that 'imitators' is meant by it, that is not adherents of a teaching but imitators of a life ... ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Without good humour, learning and bravery can only confer that superiority which swells the heart of the lion in the desert, where he roars without reply, and ravages without resistance. Without good humour virtue may awe by its dignity and amaze by its brightness, but must always be viewed at a distance, and will scarcely gain a friend or attract an imitator. ~ Samuel Johnson

Presently a serpent sought them out privately, and came to them walking upright, which was the way of serpents in those days. The serpent said the forbidden fruit would store their vacant minds with knowledge. So they ate it, which was quite natural, for man is so made that he eagerly wants to know; whereas the priest, like God, whose imitator and representative he is, has made it his business from the beginning to keep him from knowing any useful thing. ~ Mark Twain

The Christian who desires to follow Jesus carrying his cross must bear in mind that the name "Christian" means "learner or imitator of Christ" and that if he wishes to bear that noble title worthily he must above all do as Christ charges us in the Gospel: We must oppose or deny ourselves, take up the cross, and follow him. ~ Anthony Mary Claret

Chaplin made me laugh and cry without saying a word. I had an instinct. I was touched by the soul of Chaplin - Mime is not an imitator but a creator. ~ Marcel Marceau

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

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

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

This is the rule of most perfect Christianity, its most exact definition, its highest point, namely, the seeking of the common good ... for nothing can so make a person an imitator of Christ as caring for neighbors. ~ Saint John Chrysostom

The art of music, rather more daughter than imitator of nature, in her impressive and mysterious language minding and educating us, rouses directly our temper and rules us to the depths of our souls. ~ Carl Maria Von Weber

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

You need to make a decision - are you are an imitator or an innovator? ~ Stewart Stafford

You are a Christian today only because God was the first to seek peace with you. You are now called and equipped to be the first to seek after peace and to attempt to pursue and maintain unity. As you do this you have the high honor of acting as an imitator of God. ~ Thomas Brooks

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

Only Zorbas become Buddhas - and Buddha was never a monk, A monk is one who has never been a Zorba and has become enchanted by the words of Buddhas. A monk is an imitator, he is false, pseudo. He imitates Buddhas. He may be Christian, he may be Buddhist, he may be a Hindu - that doesn't make much difference - but he imitates Buddhas. ~ Rajneesh

Martin, perceiving some shelves filled with English books, said to the senator, "I fancy that a republican must be highly delighted with those books, which are most of them written with a noble spirit of freedom."
"It is noble to write as we think," said Pococurante; "it is the privilege of humanity. Throughout Italy we write only what we do not think; and the present inhabitants of the country of the Caesars and Antonines dare not acquire a single idea without the permission of a Dominican father. I should be enamored of the spirit of the English nation, did it not utterly frustrate the good effects it would produce by passion and the spirit of party."
Candide, seeing a Milton, asked the senator if he did not think that author a great man.

"Who?" said Pococurante sharply; "that barbarian who writes a tedious commentary in ten books of rumbling verse, on the first chapter of Genesis? that slovenly imitator of the Greeks, who disfigures the creation, by making the Messiah take a pair of compasses from
Heaven's armory to plan the world; whereas Moses represented the
Diety as producing the whole universe by his fiat? Can I think you have any esteem for a writer who has spoiled Tasso's Hell and the Devil; who transforms Lucifer sometimes into a toad, and at others into a
pygmy; who makes him say the same thing over again a hundred times; who metamorphoses him into a school–divine; and who, by an absurdly serious imitation of Ariosto's comic i ~ Voltaire

Rather hang thyself than belong to the horde of successful imitators. ~ Sri Aurobindo

An imitator is always a poor example. ~ Marion Davies

Find comfort in the knowledge that no imitator ever comes off as well as the original. ~ Ann Landers

An imitator is a man who succeeds in being an imitation. ~ Elbert Hubbard

Kildall, the innovator, followed his passion for technical excellence and was shocked that IBM wouldn't follow him. Gates, the imitator, took his cues from IBM every step of the way, because he believed that following Big Blue was the smartest way to follow the money. ~ Lewis Schiff

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

How grimy did God get when He reached down to clean you up? How grimy are you willing to get in order to be an 'imitator of God'? ~ Max Lucado

Anytime something becomes a success in this way you always get imitators. I'm an imitator of the guys I love. I imitate people like Frank Miller, who is a huge inspiration to me. ~ Mark Millar

When the original is well chosen and judiciously copied, the imitator often arrives at excellence which he could never have attained without direction; for few are formed with abilities to discover new possibilities of excellence, and to distinguish themselves by means never tried before. ~ Samuel Johnson

You should be more than an imitator. You must be a creator!" Donald ~ Gene Stratton-Porter

It is the fate of every great achievement to be pounced upon by pedants and imitators who drain it of life and turn it into an orthodoxy which stifles all stirrings of originality. ~ Eric Hoffer