Quotes About Imitation

La vie imite l'art, l'art imite la vie; parfois je suis incapable de les distinguer.

Invention, using the term most broadly, and imitation, are the two legs, so to call them, on which the human race historically has walked.

In this entire book, you might not find a single statement that is so rigorously supported by empirical research as this one: You are doing things because you see your peers do them.

Behavior is contagious.

It's clear that we imitate the behaviors of others, whether consciously or not. We are especially keen to see what they're doing when the situation is unfamiliar or ambiguous. And change situations are, by definition, unfamiliar! So if you want to change things, you have to pay close attention to social signals, because they can either guarantee a change effort or doom it.

Staffers tend to mimic their bosses, to take their key from them.

Suddenly hope was a thing of the past. I was just one of the other people. I tried imitating the expression on their faces; we still had five days. Then one day; then no time at all. Then I became one of them and in a few hours I'd forgotten that one can look from solid houses with horror and pity at people trekking by.

Example has more followers than reason.

Set a good example. Want to fuck yourself so that others want to fuck you too.

Solo empezamos a ser imitables ahí donde dejamos de ser nosotros mismos. Quiero decir que solo de puede imitar de nuestros gestos aquello que tienen de mecánicamente uniforme y, por eso mismo, de extraño a nuestra viva personalidad. Imitar a alguien es extraer la parte de automatismo que este ha dejado introducirse en su persona.

when the imitation of Christ does not mean to live a life like Christ, but to live your life as authentically as Christ lived his, then there are many ways and forms in which a man can be a Christian.

I wonder whether I should gain anything by the attempt to assume a character which is not mine. My wavering manner, born of doubt and scruple, has at least the advantage of rendering all the different shades of my thought, and of being sincere. If it were to become terse, affirmative, resolute, would it not be a mere imitation?

The counterfeit and counterpart of Nature is reproduced in art.

In actuality, it was like the homes of all people who are not really rich but who want to look rich, and therefore end up looking like one another: it had damasks, ebony, plants, carpets, and bronzes, everything dark and gleaming—all the effects a certain class of people produce so as to look like people of a certain class. And his place looked so much like the others that it would never have been noticed, though it all seemed quite exceptional to him.

In reality it was just what is usually seen in the houses of people of moderate means who want to appear rich, and therefore succeed only in resembling others like themselves: there are damasks, dark wood, plants, rugs, and dull and polished bronzes -- all the things people of a certain class have in order to resemble other people of that class. His house was so like the others that it would never have been noticed, but to him it all seemed to be quite exceptional.

The higher a man's conception of God, the better will he know Him. And the better he knows God, the nearer will he draw to Him, imitating His goodness, His mercy, and His love of man.

There was in her the glow of the real diamond among glass imitations.

But these were essentially the accoutrements that appeal to all people who are not actually rich but who want to look rich, though all they manage to do is look like each other: damasks, ebony, plants, rugs and bronzes, anything dark and gleaming-everything that all people of a certain class affect so as to be like all other people of a certain class. And his arrangements looked so much like everyone else's that they were unremarkable, though he saw them as something truly distinctive.

American architecture is the art of covering one thing with another thing, to immitate a third thing which, if genuine, would not be desirable

You must see that if two things are alike, then it is a further question whether the first is copied from the second, or the second from the first, or both from a third.

A perfect practice of Christianity would, of course, consist in a perfect imitation of the life of Christ -- I mean, in so far as it was applicable in one's own particular circumstance. Not in an idiotic sense -- it doesn't mean that every Christian should grow a beard, or be a bachelor, or become a travelling preacher. It means that every single act and feeling, every experience, whether pleasant or unpleasant, must be referred to God.

I need Christ, not something that resembles Him.

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.

You cannot be an educator or a teacher without relating to children with full insight. Their urge to imitate has been transformed into a receptivity based on a natural and uncontested relationship of authority, and you must take this into account in the broadest possible sense.