Voltaire

Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.

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Voltaire

Originality is nothing by judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.

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Borrowed

borrowed shirts, borrowed shoes,
borrowed books, borrowed thoughts,
borrowed bed, borrowed lover,
borrowed dreams, borrowed salt.

borrowed children, borrowed mothers,
borrowed study, borrowed lives.
borrowed God, borrowed heaven,
borrowed killers with borrowed knives.

borrowed flags, borrowed lies,
borrowed virtue, borrowed freedom.
borrowed bombs, borrowed bullets,
borrowed puppets, borrowed kingdoms.

borrowed soup bowls, borrowed numbers,
borrowed tents, borrowed bridge.
borrowed hope, borrowed survival,
borrowed till it's sacrilige!

poem by Eric CockrellReport problemRelated quotes
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Originality?

Repetition or revelation
Inspiration or imitation
Originality, individuality
Purpose, duality

Re-iteration of justification
Empty head, brain dead
Idiosyncratic representation
Copied, borrowed, re-worded
Or real

poem by Sam JonesReport problemRelated quotes
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Whats is Your Life?

Life is
Repetition or revelation
Inspiration or imitation
Originality, individuality
Purpose, duality

Re-iteration of justification
Empty headed, brain dead
Individual representation
Copied, borrowed, re-worded
Or real
What is your life?

poem by Kat MercadoReport problemRelated quotes
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Song: On Borrowed Time

We're all living on borrowed time,
Near the brooding sea and brine.
And we grow our primate's spine,
In every clime.

Since we crawled out from 'neath the grime,
And evolved to a species – prime.
We've been living on borrowed time,
On borrowed time.

On borrowed time. We feed and dine.
On borrowed time. In swill like swine.
On borrowed time. We sup our wine.
On borrowed time. On borrowed time!

On borrowed time. In slow decline.
On borrowed time. No season shines.
On borrowed time. No reason rhymes.
On borrowed time. On borrowed time!

We're all living on borrowed time,
Acting out our roles in mime,
As if you cannot tell that I'm confused.
We're all living on borrowed time,
And we're captured hook and line.
Enraptured lives entwine as minds unloose.

On borrowed time, by frantic chime,
Of doomsday clocks and scam sub-prime.
On borrowed time, we count the dime.
On borrowed time. On borrowed time!

From that day of Eve's droll crime,
When dull Adam su*ked the lime,
We've been living on borrowed time,
On borrowed time.

On borrowed time. By dread defined.
On borrowed time. Knee-deep in slime.
On borrowed time. We moan and whine.
On borrowed time. On borrowed time!

On borrowed time. To heights sublime.
On borrowed time. Statistics climb.
On borrowed time. Who reads the signs?
On borrowed time. On borrowed time!

poem by David SmithWhiteReport problemRelated quotes
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C.S. Lewis

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

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C.S. Lewis

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

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Herman Melville

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.

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on IMitation (will that anger you?)

L'imitazione del male supera sempre l'esempio; comme per il contrario, l'imitazione del bene e sempre inferiore.]

Respicere exemplar
vitae morumque jubebo
Doctum imitatorem,
et veras hinc ducere voces.

Pindarum quisquis studet aemulari,
lule ceratis ope Daedalea Nititur pennis,
vitreo daturus Nomina ponto.

Dociles imitandis Turpibus ac pravis omnes sumus
C'est un betail servile et sot a mon avis Que les imitateurs.]

Der Mensch ist ein nachahmendes Geschopf.
Und wer Vorderste ist, fuhrt die Heerde.

Paradoxically though it may seem,
it is none the less true
that life imitates art far more
than art imitates life.

Imitation is suicide.

One who imitates what is bad always goes beyond his model; while one who imitates what is good always comes up short of it.

No man ever yet became great by imitation.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us
to an understanding of ourselves.

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

Those who do not want to imitate anything,
produce nothing.

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

Insist on yourself; never imitate.

Posterity weaves no garlands for imitators.

Imitation, if noble and general,
insures the best hope of originality.

And now, weigh the pros and cons
why have i imitated you
and you imitating me

the great writers
above speak beforehand before us

and i have not heard ever
one of them complaining
or angry

perhaps
they are not to shortsighted
insecure
and shallow and short-tempered

precisely, they are great.

and here's the last saying for the day:

Imitation is the sincerest flattery.

poem by Ric S. BastasaReport problemRelated quotes
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When I came up, it was all about originality and collective research. There is an awful lot of imitation going on now.

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There is no original or primary gender a drag imitates, but gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original.

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The bad teacher imposes his ideas and his methods on his pupils, and such originality as they may have is lost in the second-rate art of imitation.

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Innovative Steps

There is no way to protect,
One's original creations...
From acts of theft.

And yet those who achieve,
Remarkable success...
In the plagiarizing of another's best,
Eventually find themselves...
Less motivated when it becomes detected,
They have abilities to follow.
And not from themselves,
Take innovative steps.

And...
A thought to express with originality,
They have yet to experience...
A delivery like that without assistance.

Right now they search,
Through other authors' works...
To re-arrange concepts,
They did not first achieve.

Although they wish others to believe...
They have been blessed to be creators.
Masking the fact...
They only have ambitions to thieve.
For them this is creating with ease.
With a hope for acceptance and notoriety.

'Who do you refer to? '

Those stimulated by imitation.
With beliefs they flatter,
By the stealing of concepts...
To achieve centerstage status.

poem by Lawrence S. PertillarReport problemRelated quotes
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Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.

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Copycats.

Whether ideas, appearance or speech
mere book reading or art-stuff
By imitation, display their weakness to you
Secretly adore u, are epigone bluff

So dear Copy Cat!
You actually making me Glad,
Empower me, making me the ONE
Very few are the Acheytypes
Rest are brainless Apes, hun!

Your stimulated acts, are unsaid compliments
as 'Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery'
try something original, its good
or I assume u've Outsourced your Battery

poem by Samima ShahReport problemRelated quotes
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Henryk Sienkiewicz

But the French writers always had more originality and independence than others, and that regulator, which elsewhere was religion, long since ceased to exist for them.

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For years that may mean imitation. Then, one day, it is like a door opening, and a new thought comes in. Why not try this instead. Suddenly he is doing something original, almost in spite of himself.

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Most people think an artist tries to be original, but originality is the last thing that develops in the artist.

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Isaac Bashevis Singer

Originality is not seen in single words or even sentences. Originality is the sum total of a man's thinking or his writing.

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Isaac Bashevis Singer

Originality is not seen in single words or even in sentences. Originality is the sum total of a man's thinking or his writing.

quote by Isaac Bashevis SingerReport problemRelated quotes
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