L’écrivain original n’est pas celui qui n’imite personne, mais celui que personne ne peut imiter.
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1979) 3rd edition
Variant translations:
The original style is not the style which never borrows of any one, but that which no other person is capable of reproducing.
As translated by Charles I. White (1856) Part 2, Book 1, Chapter 3
An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1980) 15th edition.
Le génie du Christianisme (1802)
“This little Collection differs, it is believed, from others in the attempt made to include in it all the best original lyrical pieces and songs in our language, by writers not living, and none besides the best. The Editor will regard as his fittest readers those who love poetry so well, that he can offer them nothing not already known and valued.”
Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics (1861) Preface.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Francis Turner Palgrave 21
English poet and critic 1824–1897Related quotes
Malcolm Cowley, in Henry Goodman (ed.) The Selected Writings of Lafcadio Hearn (New York: Citadel Press, 1949) p. 15.
Criticism
No. 66.
Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters, 1721)
“If there's another world, he lives in bliss;
If there is none, he made the best of this.”
Epitaph on William Muir
Posthumous Pieces (1799)
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 106.
Tablet to ‘Him Who Will Be Made Manifest’