Herman Melville Quote - Liberty Quotes Blog

"It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation."

by:	Herman Melville (1819-1891)
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Categories:	Conformity, Conscience, Courage, Independence, Individualism
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Reader comments about this quote:

10,00 stars for this quote also! I totally agree with it. Even though it would be more devastating, I would rather know that one of my songs that I wrote/created had failed to live up to my standards than to know that I was a success as a Neil Young imitation act. -- Kevin Shearer, NY. State USA.
Whether you know it or not when you fail you probably failed tying the same thing some one else proved to not work. Nice sounding quote but does not apply to all things. -- warren, olathe
I once wrote a song for a guitar lesson. The teacher said why did you put in that note "it seems our of place". I said "it was what I wanted". He said, "that is originality". Uniqueness is nice sometimes. -- Waffler, Smith, Arkansas
It all depends on what is sought after. To succeed in business you have to imitate patterns of success with some originality. Also, to truly be oneself, it is a substantive issue while imitation is only a facade. -- Mike, Norwalk
I get the jist of it, but it all depends on the price of failure, doesn't it? I am all for experimentation and figuring things out on my own, but the laws of Nature eventually dictate that some ways work and others do not. -- E Archer, NYC
Better to be original if not imitate - at least you are doing something - a good imitation is sometimes better than the real thing -- RobertSRQ
"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" So goes the saying. When you want to succeed, do what the successful have done. -- Ken, Allyn, WA
Sometimes success take time. Melville was a failure in his time. His genius was not recognized until after his death. Same with Proust who was manuscript was at first rejected now considered one of the most amazing things in literarture. Maybe success depends on who is judging it. -- Waffler, Smith, Arkansas

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