A Quote by Lionel Trilling

Immature ists imitate. Mature ists steal.

Lionel Trilling

Quote Topics

Imitate Immature Mature Steal

Quote Author

Lionel Trilling
American - Critic
July 4, 1905 - November 5, 1975

Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal.

Lionel Trilling

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

T. S. Eliot

A perfect poem is impossible. Once it had been written, the world would end. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

Robert Graves

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.

T. S. Eliot

I want to put any number of assorted 'ists' - such as relativists, deconstructionists, destructivists, postmodernists, the more maudlin kind of pacifists and feminists - firmly in their place.

Martin Van Creveld

The immature artist imitates. Mature artists steal.

Lionel Trilling

If somebody ever says something is a mature theme, it's bound to not be. I mean, you shouldn't fall for that. You can make it sound mature, but anything that's about being mature is pretty immature.

Ariel Pink

Maybe I'm being a bit harsh on philosophers, but they have not been very kind to me... I have been variously called nominalist, an instrumentalist, a positivist, a realist, and several other ists. The technique seems refutation by denigration: If you can attach a label to my approach, you don't have to say what is wrong with it... I am sure that Einstein, Heisenberg and Dirac didn't worry about whether they were realists or instrumentalists.

Stephen Hawking

One of the surest tests of the superiority or inferiority of a poet is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate mature poets steal bad poets deface what they take and good poets make it into something better or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique utterly different than that from which it is torn the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time or alien in language or diverse in interest.

T. S. Eliot

I can be immature. I know I can when I'm at my dance lessons or something. I become like the class clown. I don't know why. But I can flip in and out of it - if I need to be mature I can be mature, but if I want to have a bit of fun, I'll have a bit of fun.

Georgia Groome

Rare is the human being, immature or mature, who has never felt an impulse to pretend he is some one or something else.

George Pierce Baker

Most x-rated films are advertised as "adult entertaintment,"for "mature adults," when in reality they are juvenile entertainment for immature and insecure people.

Zig Ziglar

The immature mind hops from one thing to another; the mature mind seeks to follow through.

Harry Allen Overstreet

When becoming a character, you have to steal. Steal whatever you see. You can even steal from other actors' characterizations; but if you do, only steal from the best.