#imitation

I think we always move from imitation to assimilation to innovation, but I can't name you 20 people outside those we've already recognized who ever got to point three: innovation. ↗

— David Baker

#always #assimilation #ever #got #i

It is often by a trivial, even an anecdotal decision, that we direct our activities into a certain channel, and thus determine which of the potential expressions of our individuality become manifest. Usually we know nothing of the ultimate orientation or of the outlet toward which we travel, and the stream sweeps us to a formula of life from which there is no returning. Every decision is like a murder, and our march forward is over the stillborn bodies of all our possible selves that will never be. ↗

— René Dubos

#individuality #limitation #potential #self #life

Never limit yourself to what you can't do, but to what you have the power to do with what you have. ↗

— Nadège Richards

#life #limitations #love #power #stand-out

In Paris, Julien’s position with regard to Madame de Renal would very soon have been simplified; but in Paris love is the child of the novels. The young tutor and his timid mistress would have found in three or four novels, and even in the lyrics of the Gymnase, a clear statement of their situation. The novels would have outlined for them the part to be played, shown them the model to copy; and this model, sooner or later, albeit without the slightest pleasure, and perhaps with reluctance, vanity would have compelled Julien to follow. In a small town of the Aveyron or the Pyrenees, the slightest incident would have been made decisive by the ardour of the climate. Beneath our more sombre skies, a penniless young man, who is ambitious only because the refinement of his nature puts him in need of some of those pleasures which money provides, is in daily contact with a woman of thirty who is sincerely virtuous, occupied with her children, and never looks to novels for examples of conduct. Everything goes slowly, everything happens by degrees in the provinces: life is more natural. ↗

— Stendhal

#innocence #life #love #naturalness #love

Do not repeat after me words that you do not understand. Do not merely put on a mask of my ideas, for it will be an illusion and you will thereby deceive yourself. ↗

— Jiddu Krishnamurti

#imitation #knowledge #illusion

When I came up, it was all about originality and collective research. There is an awful lot of imitation going on now. ↗

— Steve Lacy

#awful #came #collective #going #i

It may be a mistake to say this, but I know my limitations as an actor and I know what I can and can not do. Robert De Niro can do everything. I can't. A 'Highlander' movie is basically my thing. What I'm attempting to do is develop my ability as an actor and try to be the best I can be in the fantasy/action genre. ↗

— Christopher Lambert

#action #actor #attempting #basically #best

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

— George Henry Lewes

#defined #imitation #imperfect #insight #literature

The properties which differentiate living matter from any kind of inorganic imitation may be instinctively felt, but can hardly be formulated without expert knowledge. ↗

— Oliver Joseph Lodge

#differentiate #expert #felt #formulated #hardly

I don't think so, in so far as I always aspired to play the way I do now but just couldn't get the sounds out always due to technical limitations - now I can pretty much play what I hear in realtime. ↗

— Gary Lucas

#aspired #due #far #get #hear