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IDLENESS --- IGNORANCE --- ILLEGAL ALIENS
ILLNESS --- ILLUSIONS
IMAGINATION --- IMITATION --- IMMATURITY

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IDLENESS

see: "DELAY"
see: "INACTIVITY"
see: "INDECISION"
see: "LAZINESS"
see: "PROCRASTINATION"
see: "REST"
see: "WAITING"
see "FAILURE" for other related links


Oh! how I hate to get up in the morning,
Oh! how I'd love to remain in bed.
--Irving Berlin (1888—1989)
American songwriter.
"Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning" [1918 song]

Be always asham'd to catch yourself idle.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.
_Poor Richard's Almanack_ [May 1741]

[T]he rule should be 'No labor, no meal.
--Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869—1948)
Indian statesman and leader of the nationalistic
movement against British rule.
In "Young India" [13 August 1925].

Ennui is the rust of the mind born of
idleness. It is unused tools that corrode.
--Delphine de Girardin (1804—1855)
French author.

Idleness is a mother. She has a son,
robbery, and a daughter, hunger.
--Victor Hugo (1802—1885)
French poet, dramatist, and novelist.
_Les Miserables_ [1862], "Saint Denis"

Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of
the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be
done if we are always doing.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly
unless one has plenty of work to do.
--Jerome K Jerome (1859—1927)
English novelist and playwright.
"Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" [1886]

IF you are idle, be not solitary;
if you are solitary, be not idle.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
Letter to Boswell [27 October 1779].

I am weary of swords and courts and kings
Let us go into the garden and watch the minister's bees.
--Mary Johnston (1870—1936)
American novelist.

If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon
in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned
how to live.
--Lin Yutang (1895—1976)
Chinese writer and philogist.

Nobody has worked harder at inactivity with such a
force of character, with such unremitting attention
to detail, with such conscientious devotion to the
task.
--Walter Lippmann (1889—1974)
American journalist.
Obituary of Calvin Coolidge (1872—1933).

Lie down and listen to the crabgrass grow
The faucet leak, and learn to leave them so.
--Marya Mannes (1904—1990)
American writer and critic.
_But Will it Sell_ [1955-1964]

First of all, then, Solon repealed all Draco's laws
because of their harshness and the excessively
heavy penalties they carried; the only exceptions
were the laws relating to homicide. Under the
Draconian code almost any offence was liable to
the death penalty, so that even those convicted
of idleness were executed, and those who stole
fruit or vegetables suffered the same punishment
as those who committed sacrilege or murder.
This is the reason why, in later times, Demades
became famous for his remark that Draco's code
was written not in ink but in blood. Draco himself,
when he was once asked why he had decreed the
death penalty for the great majority of offenses,
replied that he considered the minor ones deserved
it, and so for the major ones no heavier punishment
was left.
--Plutarch (A.D. 46?—119?)
Greek philosopher and biographer.
_Parallel Lives_ "Solon",
in M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.} _History in Quotations_ [2004].

Not only is he idle who is doing nothing, but
he that might be better employed.
--Socrates (470?—399 B.C.)
Greek philosopher.

Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied
at the end. It is not a day when you lounge around
doing nothing: it's when you've had everything to
do, and you've done it.
--Margaret Thatcher (1925— )
British conservative stateswoman and Prime Minister [1979—1990].

-----

gongoozler (noun) ['gahng-guz-lκ(r)]
An idle on-looker, a kibbitzer; someone
who stares protractedly at anything.



IGNORANCE

.
.

see "FAILURE" for related links
see "THE MIND" for related links


To be ignorant of one's ignorance
is the malady of the ignorant.
--[Amos] Bronson Alcott (1799—1888)
American philosopher, teacher, and reformer;
father of Louisa May Alcott.
_Table Talk_ [1877] "Discourse"

Philosophy, means, first, doubt; and afterwards the consciousness
of what knowledge means, the consciousness of uncertainty and
of ignorance, the consciousness of limit, shade, degree, possibility.
The ordinary man doubts nothing and suspects nothing.
--Henri Frιdιrick Amiel (1821—1881)
Swiss critic.

Where people wish to attach, they
should always be ignorant.
--Jane Austen (1775—1817)
English writer.
_Northanger Abbey_ [1818]

A great deal of intelligence can be invested
in ignorance when the need for illusion is
deep.
--Saul Bellow (1915—2005)
Canadian novelist.

Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate
among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford
among its citizens.
--William Henry Beveridge (1879—1963)
British economist.
_Full Employment in a Free Society_ [1944]

However big the fool, there is always a
bigger fool to admire him.
--Nicolas Boileau-Desprιaux (1636—1711)
French critic and poet.
_L'art poιtique_ [1674], canto 1

Ignorance is not innocence but sin.
--Robert Browning (1812—1889)
English poet.
_The Inn Album_[1875]

-

A man of piety complained to the Baalshem, saying:
'I have laboured hard and long in the service of the
Lord, and yet I have received no improvement. I am
stil an ordinary and ignorant person.'

The Baalshem answered: 'You have gained the
realisation that you are ordinary and ignorant, and
this in itself is a worthy accomplishment.'

--Hasidic story,
in Martin Buber _Tales of the Hasidim_.

-

The truest characters of ignorance are
vanity, and pride and arrogance.
--Samuel Butler (1835—1902)
English novelist, essayist, and critic.

It is always dangerous to offend the
dignity of the ignorant.
--Renι Cailliι (1799—1838)
French explorer who was the first European
to visit Timbuktu and return.

The multitudes remained plunged in ignorance of the
simplest economic facts, and their leaders, seeking
their votes, did not dare to undeceive them.
--Winston Churchill (1874—1965)
British Conservative statesman and
Prime Minister [1940—1945, 1951—1955].
_The Gathering Storm: The Second World War_ [1948-1951]

A man who knows the world will not only make the most of
everything he does know, but of many things that he does
not know; and will gain more credit by his adroit mode of
hiding his ignorance than the pedant by his awkward
attempt to exhibit his erudition.
--C.C. Colton (1780—1832)
English clergyman and writer.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.
--Confucius (551—479 B.C.)
K'ung Ch'iu, Chinese philosopher.

I alone know that I know nothing.
--Democritus of Abdera (c. 460 B.C.—c. 370 B.C.)
Greek philosopher.

I seemed to have gained nothing in trying to educate myself
unless it was to discover more and more fully how ignorant I
was.
--Renι Descartes (1596—1650)
French philosopher and mathematician.
_Discourse on Method and the Meditations_ [1637],
tr. Laurence J. Lafleur [1964].

Genuine ignorance is... profitable because it is
likely to be accompanied by humility, curiosity,
and open mindedness; whereas ability to repeat
catch-phrases, cant terms, familiar propositions,
gives the conceit of learning and coats the mind
with varnish waterproof to new ideas.
--John Dewey (1859—1952)
American philosopher and educator.

To be conscious that you are ignorant
is a great step to knowledge.
--Benjamin Disraeli (1804—1881)
British Tory statesman, novelist, and
Prime Minister [1868, 1874—1880].
_Sybil_ [1845]

I have never met a man so ignorant that
I couldn't learn something from him.
--Galileo Galilei (1564—1642)
Tuscan astronomer and physicist.

Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749—1832)
German poet, novelist, and playwright.
_Proverbs in Prose_

Yet ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their paradise,
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.
--Thomas Gray (1716—1771)
English poet.
"Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" [1747]

Knowing what
Thou knowest not
Is, in a sense
Omniscience.
--Piet Hein (1905—1996)
Danish poet and mathematician.

If ignorance ever goes to $40 a barrel, I want
drillin' rights on that man's head.
--Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower
discussing President George Bush's [41] policies.

The attacks upon the [Supreme] Court are merely an expression
of the unrest that seems to wonder vaguely whether law and
order pay. When the ignorant are taught to doubt, they do not
know what they safely may believe.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841—1935)
Justice of the United States Supreme Court,
legal historian, and philosopher.
_Law and the Court_ [1913]

The recipe for perpetual ignorance is a very simple
and effective one: be satisfied with your opinions
and content with your knowledge.
--Elbert Hubbard (1859—1915)
American editor, publisher, and author who
died in the sinking of the "Lusitania."

He does not weep who does not see.
--Victor Hugo (1802—1885)
French poet, dramatist, and novelist.
_Les Miserables_ [1862], "Jean Valjean"

Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote
from the truth who believes nothing, than he who
believes what is wrong.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
_Notes on the State of Virginia_ [1784], Query 6

It is worse still to be ignorant of
your ignorance.
--Saint Jerome (c.340—420?)
Translator of the Bible from Greek and Hebrew into Latin.
_Letter 53_

Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
_Rasselas_ [1759], ch. 30

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere
ignorance and conscientious stupidity
--Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929—1968)
American civil rights leader.
_Strength to Love_ [1963]

A great part of mankind are . . . unavoidably given
over to invincible ignorance.
--John Locke (1632—1704)
English political and educational philosopher.
_An Essay concerning Human Understanding_ [1690]

No one in this world, as far as I know.... has ever lost
money by underestimating the intelligence of the great
masses of the plain people.
--H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956)
American journalist and literary critic.
"Notes on Journalism"
_Chicago Tribune_ [19 September 1926]

-

Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man
can rest his head.
--Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533—1592)
French moralist and essayist.


Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy,
inquiry the process, ignorance the end.
--Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533—1592)
French moralist and essayist.

-

The greater the ignorance the greater
the dogmatism.
--Sir William Osler (1849—1919)
Canadian-born physician.
In the "Montreal Medical Journal" [1902].

-

It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow-necked
bottles: the less they have in them, the more noise they
make in pouring it out.
--Alexander Pope (1688—1744)
English poet.
_Miscellanies_ Vol 2 [1727]


There never was any party, faction, sect, or cabal whatsoever,
in which the most ignorant were not the most violent.
--Alexander Pope (1688—1744)
English poet.

-

Ignorance is not a simple lack of knowledge but an active
aversion to knowledge, the refusal to know, issuing from
cowardice, pride, or laziness of mind.
--Karl Popper (1902—1994)
Austrian-born British philosopher of science.
As paraphrased by Ryszard Kapuscinski in
"The Philosopher as Giant-Slayer"
_New York Times Magazine_ [1 January 1995].

You know everybody is ignorant,
only on different subjects.
--Will Rogers [William Penn Adair Rogers] (1879—1935)
American humorist and actor.
In "New York Times" [31 August 1924].

If one does not know to which port one
is sailing, no wind is favorable.
--Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC—65 A.D.)
Roman philosopher and poet.
_Epistulae Morales_

-

...Accordingly I went to one [man] who had the reputation of
wisdom, and observed to him - his name I need not mention;
he was a politician whom I selected for examination - and the
result was as follows: When I began to talk with him, I could
not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was
thought wise by many, and wiser still by himself; and I went
and tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but
was not really wise; and the consequence was that he hated
me, and his enmity was shared by several who were present
and heard me. So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away:
Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything
really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is - for he
knows nothing, and thinks that he knows. I neither know nor
think that I know. In this latter particular, then, I seem to have
slightly the advantage of him. Then I went to another, who had
still higher philosophical pretensions, and my conclusion was
exactly the same. I made another enemy of him, and of many
others besides him.
--Socrates (470?—399 B.C.)
Greek philosopher.
In Plato (427?—347 B.C.), _Apology_

-

-

There's none so blind as they that won't see.
--Jonathan Swift (1667—1745)
Anglo-Irish poet and satirist.
_A Complete Collection of Polite and Ingenious Conversation_ [1738]


It is very unfair in any writer to employ ignorance and
malice together, because it gives his answerer double
work.
--Jonathan Swift (1667—1745)
Anglo-Irish poet and satirist.

-

When [ignorance] does not know something, it says
that what it does not know is stupid.
--Leo Tolstoy (1828—1910)
Russian novelist.
_A Confession_ [1882], Chapter 7

That is just the way with some people. They get down
on a thing when they don't know nothing about it.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
_The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ [1884]

We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance.
As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore
of our ignorance.
--John A. Wheeler (1911— )
American theoretical physicist.

Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance
is the death of knowledge.
--Alfred North Whitehead (1861—1947)
British philosopher and mathematician.

-----

hebetude [HEB-uh-tood-; -tyood], noun:
Mental dullness or sluggishness.
Ex.: While too many Americans slouch toward a terminal funk of
hebetude and sloth, Bendians race ahead with toned muscles,
wide eyes and brains perpetually wired on adrenaline.
--"Wild rides in the heart of central Oregon: Bent out of
shape in Bend,"
_Washington Times_ [11 August 2001]
The adjective is hebetudinous heb-uh-TOOD-n-us; -TYOOD-.

ignoramus [ig-nuh-RAY-mus], noun:
An ignorant person; a dunce.

nescient (adj.)
'ne-shent, 'ne-si-yκnt
Ignorant, lacking knowledge



ILLEGAL ALIENS

.
.

see: "IMMIGRATION"
see "THE HUMAN RACE" for other related links


Illegal aliens have always been a problem
in the United States. Ask any Indian.
--Robert Orben (1927— )
American magician and comedy writer.



ILLNESS

.
.

see "HEALTH" for related links


My illness is due to my doctor's insistence that I
drink milk, a whitish fluid they force down helpless
babies.
--W. C. Fields [William Claude Dukenfield]
(1880—1946) American vaudeville star and film actor.

Illness can be cured by shining different coloured
lights on the afflicted parts of the body.
--Colonel Dinshah Ghadiali (1873—1966)
Indian-born American medical quack.

-

Of all workers, the intellectual worker has least
need of health or rest or favorable working
conditions. It is hard to imagine what Rembrandt
would have achieved had he been deprived of
canvas, or a Beethoven without musical instruments.

But for a long time Descartes was shut up in a smoky
room without books; Pascal did his best work when
he was an invalid and had to scribble on any paper
he had at hand.

And think of Marcel Proust, asthmatic and dying, who
could write well only when, bedridden, he lay half-
suffocating in a room hazy with inhalations, his
bedclothes serving as his desk.

You may well wonder about Proust and Pascal: Would
health have helped them as much as illness did?
The need to make every moment count, the anguish
of being perhaps unable to finish, the having to
break off, the forgetting, suffering, sudden
flashes of insight — all these accompaniments
to a physical ailment stimulated their minds.

Epicurus was an invalid, too, and sat in a rose-
laurel garden, only rising now and then to note
down some thought. Lucretius was undoubtedly
even more seriously ill. St. Paul wrote, ". . . we
are being hampered everywhere, yet still have
room to breathe, are hard put to it, but never
at a loss. . . ." (2 Corinthians 4:8). Nietzsche,
reflecting on the root of life, wondered about
the nature of illness, and came to see in it
a means to self-realization.

Must a person give up working when he is tired
or in pain — for example, in the lapses caused by
a minor illness? Obviously, severe illness or total
destitution makes it impossible to concentrate.
But the trials of life have their rhythms and
moments of surcease when you can find place
for nonphysical work, although it may not be
termed intellectual effort.

--Jean Guitton (1901—1999)
French Catholic philosopher and theologian.
_A Student's Guide to Intellectual Work_ [1951],
"Working While Tired Or Sick"

-

You eat us. You wear us. You sneak into the
fields and tip us over. Of course we're mad!
--Jerry Seinfeld (1954— )
American actor, writer, and comedian.
On Mad Cow.

We achieve "active" mastery over illness and
death by delegating all responsibility for
their management to physicians, and by exiling
the sick and the dying to hospitals. But hospitals
serve the convenience of staff not patients: we
cannot be properly ill in a hospital, nor die in
one decently; we can do so only among those who
love and value us. The result is the institutionalized
dehumanization of the ill, characteristic of our age.
--Thomas Szasz (1920— )
American psychiatrist.
_The Second Sin_, "Personal Conduct" [1973]



Click picture to ZOOM
ILLUSIONS

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.

see: "ERROR"
see: "REALITY"
see "DECEPTION" for other related links


What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists?
In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.
--Woody Allen [Allen Stewart Konigsberg] (1935— )
American actor, screenwriter, and director.

As long as the heart preserves desire,
the mind preserves illusion.
--Franηois-Renι de Chateaubriand (1768—1848)
French writer and diplomat.
In _A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness_,
compiled by J. De Finod [1880], p. 153.

We do not like those who unmask our illusions.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882)
American philosopher and poet.
"Character" in _Lectures and Biographical Sketches_ [1883]

The illusion that times that were are better than
those that are, has probably pervaded all ages.
--Horace Greeley (1811—1872)
American newspaper editor.

The biggest lesson you can learn in life, or teach
your children, is that life is not castles in the
skies, happily ever after. . . . we're all built
with illusions. And they break.
--Goldie Hawn (1945— )
American actress.

Of all the illusions that beset mankind, none is quite so
curious as [the] tendency to suppose that we are mentally
and morally superior to those who differ from us in opinion.
--Elbert Hubbard (1859—1915)
American editor, publisher, and author who
died in the sinking of the "Lusitania."
Quoted in Laurence J. Peter _Peter's People_ [1979].

If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves,
it is because self-knowledge is painful and
we prefer the pleasures of illusion.
--Aldous Huxley (1894—1963)
English novelist (grandson of T.H. Huxley.)
_The Perennial Philosophy_ [1946], ch. 9

The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside
from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify
error, if error seduce[s] them. Whoever can supply them
with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to
destroy their illusions is always their victim.
--Gustave Le Bon (1841—1931)
French social psychologist best known for his study
of the psychological characteristics of crowds.
_The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind_ [1895]

An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted.
--Arthur Miller (1915—2005)
American dramatist.

This world is all a fleeting show,
For man's illusion given;
The smiles of joy, the tears of woe,
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow,
There's nothing true but Heaven.
--Thomas Moore (1779—1852)
Irish poet, satirist, composer, and musician.
_This World Is All a Fleeting Show_

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may
still exist, but you have ceased to live.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.




IMAGINATION

.
.

see "DISCOVERY" for related links
see "THE MIND" for related links
see "SUCCESS" for related links


A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps
from admiration to love, from love to matrimony
in a moment.
--Jane Austen (1775—1817)
English writer.
_Pride and Prejudice_ [1813], Chapter 6

Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.
--Lauren Bacall [Betty Joan Perske] (1924— )
American actress.

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what
he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.
--Francis Bacon (1561—1626)
English philosopher and essayist.

Imagination has brought mankind through the dark ages to its present
state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America.
Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity. Imagination has given
us the steam engine,the telephone the talking-machine, and the
automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they
became realities. So I believe that dreams — daydreams, you know,
with your eyes wide open and your brain machinery whizzing — are
likely to lead to the betterment of the world. The imaginative child
will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to invent, and
therefore to foster, civilization.
--L. [Lyman] Frank Baum (1856—1919)
American writer.

What never has been cannot be imagined.
--Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875—1950)
American novelist.
_Thuvia, Maid Of Mars_ [1920]

To treat your facts with imagination is one thing,
to imagine your facts is another.
--John Burroughs (1837—1921)
American naturalist and writer.
"24 October 1907"
_The Heart of Burroughs's Journals_ [1928], ed. Clara Barrus

Imagination: The one weapon
in the war against reality.
--Jules de Gaultier (1858—1942)
French author and philosopher.

-

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
--Albert Einstein (1879—1955)
German-American physicist who developed the
special and general theories of relativity.


Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination
will take you everywhere.
--Albert Einstein (1879—1955)
German-American physicist who developed the
special and general theories of relativity.
In Andrew I Weeraratne
_Uncommon Commonsense Steps to Super Wealth_, p. 208 [2007].

-

Demons do not exist any more than gods do, being
only the products of the psychic activity of man.
--Sigmund Freud (1856—1939)
Austrian psychiatrist.
In _New York Times Magazine_ [6 May 1956].

Few people have the imagination for reality.
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749—1832)
German poet, novelist, and playwright.

His imagination resembled the wings of an ostrich.
It enabled him to run, though not to soar.
--Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800—1859)
English politician and historian.
T.F. Ellis (ed.) _Miscellaneous Writings of Lord Macauley_ [1860] "John Dryden" [1828]

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that
never were. But without it, we go nowhere.
--Carl Sagan (1934—1996)
American astronomer and author.
_Cosmos_ [1980]

If you have built castles in the air, your work
need not be lost; that is where they should be.
Now put foundations under them.
--Henry David Thoreau (1817—1862)
American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher.
"Conclusion" in _Walden_ [1854]

If you can imagine it, you can achieve it. If
you can dream it, you can become it.
--William Arthur Ward (1921—1994)
American college administrator and author.

-----

chimerical [ky-MER-ih-kuhl; -MIR-; kih-], adjective:
1. Merely imaginary; produced by or as if by a wildly fanciful
imagination; fantastic; improbable or unrealistic.
2. Given to or indulging in unrealistic fantasies or fantastic
schemes.
Ex.: Her name is Dulcinea; her country El Toboso, a village
in La Mancha; her degree at least that of Princess, for she
is my Queen and mistress; her beauty superhuman, for in
her are realized all the impossible and chimerical attributes
of beauty which poets give to their ladies.
--Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)
Spanish novelist,
_Don Quixote de la Mancha_ [1605-1615]

Chimerical is ultimately derived from Greek khimaira,
"she-goat" or "chimera," which in Greek mythology was a
monster having the head of a lion, the body of a goat,
and the tail of a dragon.

-

Cockaigne [kah-KAYN], noun:
An imaginary land of ease and luxury.
Ety.: References to Cockaigne are prominent in medieval European
lore. George Ellis, in his Specimens of Early English Poets (1790),
printed an old French poem called "The Land of Cockaign" (13th
century) where "the houses were made of barley sugar and cakes,
the streets were paved with pastry, and the shops supplied goods
for nothing."

fecund (adjective)
Marked by intellectual productivity.
Synonyms: prolific, fertile




IMITATION

.
.

see: "CONFORMITY"

Children have never been very good at listening
to their elders, but they have never failed to
imitate them.
--James Baldwin (1924—1987)
American author and playwright.
_Nobody Knows My Name_ [1961], ch. 3

A man after his own heart.
--Bible
"The First Book of Samuel" 13:14

Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.
--C.C. Colton (1780—1832)
English clergyman and writer.
_Lacon: or, Many Things in Few Words;
Addressed to Those Who Think_ [1820],
Volume 1, Number 217

Insist on yourself; never imitate.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882)
American philosopher and poet.
_Essays: First Series_ [1841], "Self-Reliance"

Imitation, if it is not forgery, is a fine thing. It stems
from a generous impulse, and a realistic sense of what
can and can not be done.
--James Fenton (1949— )
British poet and critic.

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead
of a second-rate version of somebody else.
--Judy Garland [Frances Gumm] (1922—1969)
American motion-picture singer and actress.

When people are free to do as they please,
they usually imitate each other.
--Eric Hoffer (1902—1983)
American longshoreman, philosopher,
and author who received the Presidential
Medal of Freedom in 1982.
_The Passionate State of Mind: And Other Aphorisms_ [1955]

To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation.
--Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742—1799)
German scientist and drama critic.
"Notebook E", Aphorism 11
_Aphorisms_, 1765—1799

To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.
--Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121—180)
Roman emperor [161—180] and Stoic philosopher.
_Meditations_ Book VI, Number 6

Anything Sam Cooke did I would do . . . apart from
getting shot in a hotel room by a hooker.
--Rod Stewart (1945— )
English singer and songwriter.
(In Raymond Obstfeld's _Jabberrock_ [1997], "Friends and Enemies"

If I try to be like him, who will be like me?
--Yiddish Proverb

-----

epigone [EP-uh-gohn], noun:
epigonic: adjective.
An inferior imitator, especially of some distinguished
writer, artist, musician, or philosopher.
Ex.: No novelist is dearer to me than Robert Musil. He died
one morning while lifting weights. When I lift them myself,
I keep anxiously checking my pulse, and I am afraid of dropping
dead, for to die with a weight in my hand like my revered author
would make me an epigone so unbelievable, frenetic and fanatical
as immediately to assure me of ridiculous immortality."
--Milan Kundera,
_Immortality_

ersatz [AIR-sahts; UR-sats], adjective:
Being a substitute or imitation, usually an inferior one.
Meanwhile, a poor copy was erected in the courtyard; many
an unsuspecting traveler paid homage to that ersatz
masterpiece.
--Edith Pearlman, "Girl and Marble Boy,"
_The Atlantic,_ [29 December 1999]

mimetic [mim-ET-ik], adjective:
1. Apt to imitate; given to mimicry; imitative.
2. Characterized by mimicry.
Ex.: It is as preposterous to believe that all entertainment is
hypodermic, directly injecting bad ideas into the innocent
bloodstream of the passive masses, as it is to pretend that
all behavior is mimetic and that our only models are Eliot
Ness or Dirty Harry.
--John Leonard,
"Smoke and Mirrors"



IMMATURITY

.
.

see: "IMPULSIVE"
see: "INEXPERIENCE"
see: "YOUTH"


What I look forward to is continued
immaturity followed by death.
--Dave Barry (1947— )
American humorist.

It's not that age brings childhood back again,
Age merely shows what children we remain.
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749—1832)
German poet, novelist, and playwright.
_Faust_ [1808-1832], "Prelude in the Theater"

Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men.
--Frank McKinney (Kin) Hubbard (1868—1930)
American humorist.

-----

callow (adj.) ['kζ-lo]
Immature, inexperienced, having not
reached adulthood, as a callow youth.

jejune [juh-JOON], adjective:
1. Lacking in nutritive value.
2. Displaying or suggesting a lack of maturity; childish.
3. Lacking interest or significance; dull; meager; dry.

mardy (adj.) ['mahr-dee]
(Dialectal, slang) Spoilt, sulky, whinging (['win-jing]-that's "whining" to
North Americans). In the northern counties and Midlands of Great Britain,
and in Australia and New Zealand, it is also used to refer to someone
who's easily scared or upset.

unfledged [uhn-FLEJD], adjective:
1. Lacking the feathers necessary for flight.
2. Not fully developed; immature.


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