It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. ✨ He…

Herman Melville
214 citations
It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. ✨ Herman Melville, Harrison Hayford, G. Thomas Tanselle (1987). Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces, 1839-1860: Volume Nine, Scholarly Edition, p.247, Northwestern University Press
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What man who carries a heavenly soul in him, has not groaned to perceive, that unless he committed a sort of suicide as to the practical things of this world, he never can hope to regulate his earthl … ▶
There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become … ▶
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He says NO! In thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him say yes. ✨ 1851 Of Nathaniel Hawthorne.

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. ✨ Herman Melville, Harrison Hayford, G. Thomas Tanselle (1987). Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces, 1839-1860: Volume Nine, Scholarly Edition, p.247, Northwestern University Press

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