Life & Wisdom Quote by Marguerite Young

Originality is framed here less as a romantic ideal than as basic social hygiene. Marguerite Young isn’t pleading for applause; she’s drawing a boundary. The line lands with the dry force of someone who’s watched “influence” get mistaken for personality. “Without a voice of their own” isn’t just an aesthetic complaint, it’s a moral one: imitation becomes a kind of parasitism, a way of avoiding the risks of thinking in public.

Young’s phrasing is canny. “Most people don’t like” pretends to be neutral, almost sociological, while quietly applying pressure: if you’re the emulator, you’re also the one no one enjoys being around. Then she turns the knife inward with “I certainly don’t want,” shifting from general principle to personal refusal. It’s not petty. It’s protective. Being mirrored back your own ideas is a deadening experience - conversation reduced to a feedback loop, art reduced to an echo chamber.

Context matters: Young was a fiercely independent American writer associated with the mid-century literary world, a scene that ran on mentorship, salons, and reputations - and on the temptation to borrow a distinctive voice because building your own takes years. Her impatience reads as a defense of craft. She’s insisting that influence should metabolize into something new, not remain as unchewed quotation. The subtext: if you want proximity to a mind, bring friction, not flattery.