The body of all true religion consists, to be sure, in obedience to the will of the Sovereign of the world, in a confidence in His declarations, and in imitation of His perfections.
Edmund Burke
It appears to [Nietzsche] that the modern age has produced for imitation three types of man First, Rousseaus man, the Titan who raises himself and in his need calls upon holy nature. Then Goethes man a spectator of the world [Third] Schopenhauers man voluntarily takes upon himself the pain of telling the truth.
Georg Morris Cohen Brandes
A tragedy, then, is the imitation of an action ... with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.
Aristotle
There is a flavor that our time (perhaps surfeited by the clumsy imitations of professional patriots) does not usually perceive without some suspicion: the fundamental flavor of the heroic.
Jorge Luis Borges