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)
“An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate.”
Source: The Genius of Christianity or the Spirit and Beauty of the Christian Religion
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François-René de Chateaubriand 28
French writer, politician, diplomat and historian 1768–1848Related quotes
Quote from John Constable's letter to Mr. C.R. Leslie 22 June 1832
1830s
"Imitation and Gender Insubordination" in Inside/Out (1991) edited by Diana Fuss
“No one can imitate Dunsany, and probably everyone who's ever read him has tried.”
C. L. Moore, letter to H. P. Lovecraft dated January 30, 1936
About
“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”
Hawthorne and His Mosses (1850)
Context: It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness.
Context: It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness. And if it be said, that continual success is a proof that a man wisely knows his powers, — it is only to be added, that, in that case, he knows them to be small. Let us believe it, then, once for all, that there is no hope for us in these smooth pleasing writers that know their powers.
“A poor original is better than a good imitation.”
Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 185.
Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 13, Bits & Pieces, p. 136.
“There's nobody can fix this but yourself. You are the only one who can make the changes.”
Ch 11 - p.236
Novels, Midwinter Break (2017)