“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

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate." by François-René de Chateaubriand?
François-René de Chateaubriand photo
François-René de Chateaubriand 28
French writer, politician, diplomat and historian 1768–1848

Related quotes

François-René de Chateaubriand photo

“The original writer is not he who refrains from imitating others, but he who can be imitated by none.”

François-René de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) French writer, politician, diplomat and historian

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)

John Constable photo

“My art flatters nobody by imitation, it courts nobody by smoothness, nobody by petitelieness without either fal-de-lal or fiddle-de-dee; how then can I hope to be popular?”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Quote from John Constable's letter to Mr. C.R. Leslie 22 June 1832
1830s

Judith Butler photo

“Gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original; in fact, it is a kind of imitation that produces the very notion of the original as an effect and consequence of the imitation itself.”

Judith Butler (1956) American philosopher and gender theorist

"Imitation and Gender Insubordination" in Inside/Out (1991) edited by Diana Fuss

Lord Dunsany photo

“No one can imitate Dunsany, and probably everyone who's ever read him has tried.”

Lord Dunsany (1878–1957) Irish writer and dramatist

C. L. Moore, letter to H. P. Lovecraft dated January 30, 1936
About

Herman Melville photo

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

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.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox photo
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Never hesitate to imitate another writer - every person learning a craft or an art needs models. Eventually you'll find your own voice and will shed the skin of the writer you imitated.”

William Zinsser (1922–2015) writer, editor, journalist, literary critic, professor

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)

Related topics