#imitation

Our historical experience teaches us that men imitate one another, that their attitudes are statistically calculable, their opinions manipulable, and that man is therefore less an individual (a subject) than an element in a mass. ↗

— Milan Kundera

#man #opinions #attitude

And I couldn't make fun of her for that dream. It was my dream, too. And Indian boys weren't supposed to dream like that. And white girls from small towns weren't supposed to dream big, either. We were supposed to be happy with our limitations. But there was no way Penelope and I were going to sit still. Nope, we both wanted to fly: ↗

— Sherman Alexie

#inspirational #limitations #over-coming-odds #prospects-on-life #dreams

The enemy of art is the absence of limitations. ↗

— Orson Welles

#art #enemy #limitations

Justice for crimes against humanity must have no limitations. ↗

— Simon Wiesenthal

#crimes #humanity #justice #limitations #must

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

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

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

I believe that a contract, or at least an understanding, exists between the American public and the American advertiser concerning what advertising is, what its limitations are and what price people will pay for it. ↗

— John O'Toole

#advertising #american #american public #believe #between

Political commercials encourage the deceptive, the destructive and the degrading. ↗

— John O'Toole

#advertising #american #american public #believe #between