"If you want to be original just try being yourself, because God has never made two people exactly alike"
About this Quote
Originality is pitched here not as a stunt but as a surrender: stop auditioning for uniqueness and you’ll accidentally become unique. Meltzer, a lawyer by trade and a radio advice-giver by fame, is selling relief from a particularly American pressure - the mandate to stand out - by reframing it as a theological fact. If God “never made two people exactly alike,” then originality isn’t a scarce resource you hustle for; it’s your default setting.
The line works because it flatters without inflating. “Just try being yourself” sounds simple, even folksy, but the subtext is a quiet rebuke of performance culture: the more you chase the quirks that read as “original,” the more you become a copy of whatever your moment currently rewards. Meltzer’s courtroom sensibility shows in the structure. He doesn’t argue originality is good; he asserts a premise (divine uniqueness) that makes the conclusion feel inevitable. The word “exactly” does important legal labor too, carving out space for resemblance while insisting on irreducible difference.
Context matters: mid-century self-help and postwar optimism often treated identity like a project you could manage. Meltzer’s twist is to treat it like evidence already entered into the record. That “God” clause also broadens the audience, offering a moral warrant that bypasses psychology. It’s less a mystical claim than a cultural permission slip: you don’t need to invent a persona to be someone. You just need to stop editing yourself into a trend.
The line works because it flatters without inflating. “Just try being yourself” sounds simple, even folksy, but the subtext is a quiet rebuke of performance culture: the more you chase the quirks that read as “original,” the more you become a copy of whatever your moment currently rewards. Meltzer’s courtroom sensibility shows in the structure. He doesn’t argue originality is good; he asserts a premise (divine uniqueness) that makes the conclusion feel inevitable. The word “exactly” does important legal labor too, carving out space for resemblance while insisting on irreducible difference.
Context matters: mid-century self-help and postwar optimism often treated identity like a project you could manage. Meltzer’s twist is to treat it like evidence already entered into the record. That “God” clause also broadens the audience, offering a moral warrant that bypasses psychology. It’s less a mystical claim than a cultural permission slip: you don’t need to invent a persona to be someone. You just need to stop editing yourself into a trend.
Quote Details
| Topic | Self-Love |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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