This quote is absolute B.S...

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

Really?! 

Fuji imitated Kodak, and it worked out for them. 

Facebook (in the early years) imitated MySpace, and it worked out for them.

Honda imitated Toyota, and it worked out for them. 

All of the titans of industry figure out what others are doing and try to imitate them and then make it better.

Would you rather be original and broke or great at duplicating what works and be well off?