Source identified
“Insist on yourself; never imitate.”
Originality begins with developing one’s own capacities rather than copying another person’s surface style.
Source note: Self-Reliance; Emerson gives the imperative while arguing for originality, self-trust, and resistance to imitation rather than dependence on another person’s model.
Source identified
“At any rate see that it be your own, and not another's; on no other terms will the world listen to it.”
Distinctive style is tied to ownership of thought and expression: the writer is urged to develop a voice grounded in genuine perception rather than borrowed manner.
Source note: The Principles of Success in Literature, chapter on Style, Project Gutenberg #10420; the sentence concludes a warning against imitation and affected literary manner.
Source identified
“They ought to be illustrations not authorities, studies not models.”
Great predecessors can teach principles without becoming templates to copy, preserving the learner’s responsibility to develop independent judgment and expression.
Source note: The Principles of Success in Literature, chapter on Style, Project Gutenberg #10420; Lewes is warning writers against imitating Cicero, Titian or other masters.
Source identified
“I WAS A MAN NOW.”
The emphatic line records Douglass’s restored sense of manhood and dignity after resisting physical domination; it belongs to a specific autobiographical struggle against enslavement.
Source note: My Bondage and My Freedom, immediately after Douglass describes his resistance to Covey; capitalization follows the represented Project Gutenberg text.
Source identified
“The Ideal is in thyself”
Voice: Fictional narrator · Diogenes Teufelsdröckh (framed voice)
The phrase turns the search for an ideal life inward, arguing that a person’s task is to shape present circumstances through capacities and standards not supplied wholly from outside.
Source note: Sartor Resartus, Book II, Chapter IX; Project Gutenberg #1051. The surrounding passage is highly rhetorical and spoken through the book’s fictional-philosophical construction rather than as a plain autobiographical maxim.
Source identified
“Above all, don’t lie to yourself.”
Voice: Fictional character · Father Zossima
Self-deception is presented as especially damaging because it corrupts the person’s ability to recognize truth both inwardly and around them.
Source note: The Brothers Karamazov, Book II, Father Zossima’s counsel; Constance Garnett translation.