The properties which differentiate living matter from any kind of inorganic imitation may be instinctively felt, but can hardly be formulated without expert knowledge.

Life must be considered sui generis; it is not a form of energy, nor can it be expressed in terms of something else.

We know that communication must be hampered, and its form largely determined, by the unconscious but inevitable influence of a transmitting mechanism, whether that be of a merely mechanical or of a physiological character.

Death is not a word to fear, any more than birth is.

Death is not extinction. Neither the soul nor the body is extinguished or put out of existence.

Whatever life may really be, it is to us an abstraction: for the word is a generalised term to signify that which is common to all animals and plants, and which is not directly operative in the inorganic world.

In other cases, when the medium becomes entranced, the demonstration of a communicator's separate intelligence may become stronger and the sophistication less.

But although life is not energy, any more than it is matter, yet it directs energy and thereby controls arrangements of matter.

They definitely mean to maintain that the process called death is a mere severence of soul and body, and that the soul is freed rather than injured thereby.

The hypothesis of surviving intelligence and personality - not only surviving but anxious and able with difficulty to communicate - is the simplest and most straightforward and the only one that fits all the facts.

Of mediumship there are many grades, one of the simplest forms being the capacity to receive an impression or automatic writing, under peaceful conditions, in an ordinary state; but the whole subject is too large to be treated here.

The properties which differentiate living matter from any kind of inorganic imitation may be instinctively felt, but can hardly be formulated without expert knowledge.

Any person without invincible prejudice who had the same experience would come to the same broad conclusion, viz., that things hitherto held impossible do actually occur.

The old series of sittings with Mrs. Piper convinced me of survival for reasons which I should find it hard to formulate in any strict fashion, but that was their distinct effect.

The amount of sophistication varies according to the quality of the medium, and to the state of the same medium at different times; it must be attributed in the best cases physiologically to the medium, intellectually to the control.

Basing my conclusions on experience I am absolutely convinced not only of survival but of demonstrated survival, demonstrated by occasional interaction with matter in such a way as to produce physical results.

I don't know if there is any one secret to successful writing, but one important step is to move beyond imitation and discover what you can write that no one else can - that is, find out who you are and write that in an appropriate narrative and style.

Imitation is the sincerest form of pain.

The Negroes have little invention, but strong powers of imitation, so that they readily acquire mechanic arts. They have a great talent for music, and all their external senses are remarkably acute.

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

There is no original or primary gender a drag imitates, but gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original.

To be as good as our fathers we must be better, imitation is not discipleship.

The worst acting is about imitation.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery, but clones kind of get it wrong because we are promoting individuality and being proud of being yourself.

The bad gains respect through imitation, the good loses it especially in art.

I don't like traditions, I am very personal, very independent, I don't like intimate ladies, I mean in German lieder there's a lot of copy, a lot of imitation, a lot of tradition, and this I have put it aside.

Imitation is the sincerest flattery.

Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery.

Ignorance and a narrow education lay the foundation of vice, and imitation and custom rear it up.

Of what use were the arts if they were only the reproduction and the imitation of life?

The opponents of this process have always tried to vilify westernization as a poor imitation.

When I came up, it was all about originality and collective research. There is an awful lot of imitation going on now.

Unfortunately what came out of it was also kind of an imitation community with a lot of mindless conformity.

Fashion is something barbarous, for it produces innovation without reason and imitation without benefit.

All bad Literature rests upon imperfect insight, or upon imitation, which may be defined as seeing at second-hand.

Anyone who draws attention to himself as an individual, is viewed with suspicion. We acquired this tendency, of course, from America, and we must resist it: levelling, and imitation of what others are already doing.

My works are an imitation of my own past and present.

The false is nothing but an imitation of the true.

Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it. No painting or drawing, however naturalist, belongs to its subject in the way that a photograph does.

The heroes of the present will retreat to the imitation they are anyhow.

The Cube is an imitation of life itself - or even an improvement on life.

Imitation, if it is not forgery, is a fine thing. It stems from a generous impulse, and a realistic sense of what can and cannot be done.

To do the opposite of something is also a form of imitation, namely an imitation of its opposite.

Men often applaud an imitation and hiss the real thing.

No man was ever great by imitation.

Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it 'the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.' The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of 'Artist.'

Plot, rules, nor even poetry, are not half so great beauties in tragedy or comedy as a just imitation of nature, of character, of the passions and their operations in diversified situations.

There are works of literature whose influence is strong but indirect because it is mediated through the whole of the culture rather than immediately through imitation. Wordsworth is the case that comes to mind.

Imitation is the sincerest form of television.