All Quotes

“Mediocrity is like a spot on your shirt, it never comes off. Dance Dance Dance”

“likewesaid, we'lldowhatwecan. Trytoreconnectyou, towhatyouwant,”

“But I didn't understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair. South of the Border, West of the Sun”

“Even castles in the sky can do with a fresh coat of paint. South of the Border, West of the Sun”

“You burn barns. I don't burn barns. There's this glaring difference, and to me, rather than say which of us is strange, first of all I'd like to clear up just what that difference is. "Barn Burning"(short story) in The Elephant Vanishes”

“Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness? Sputnik Sweetheart”

“And it came to me then. That we were wonderful traveling companions but in the end no more than lonely lumps of metal in their own separate orbits. From far off they look like beautiful shooting stars, but in reality they're nothing more than prisons, where each of us is locked up alone, going nowhere. When the orbits of these two satellites of ours happened to cross paths, we could be together. Maybe even open our hearts to each other. But that was only for the briefest moment. In the next instant we'd be in absolute solitude. Until we burned up and became nothing. Sputnik Sweetheart”

“I cannot escape the objection that there is no state of mind , however simple , that does not change every moment . An Introduction to Metaphysics (1903), translated by T. E. Hulme . New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1912, p. 44”

“The present contains nothing more than the past , and what is found in the effect was already in the cause. Creative Evolution (1907), Chapter I, as translated by Arthur Mitchell (1911), p. 14.; italicized in the original.”

“All the living hold together, and all yield to the same tremendous push. The animal takes its stand on the plant , man bestrides animality, and the whole of humanity , in space and in time , is one immense army galloping beside and before and behind each of us in an overwhelming charge able to beat down every resistance and clear the most formidable obstacles, perhaps even death . Creative Evolution (1907), Chapter III. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1911, p. 271”

“L’intuition philosophique”

“Je dirais qu'il faut agir en homme de pensée et penser en homme d'action. I would say act like a man of thought and think like a man of action . Speech at the Descartes Conference in Paris”

“Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.”

“Intuition is a method of feeling one's way intellectually into the inner heart of a thing to locate what is unique and inexpressible in it. Quoted in Georgia O'Keeffe, 1887”

“The remembrance of forbidden fruit is the earliest thing in the memory of each of us, as it is in that of mankind. Chapter I: Moral Obligation”

“Why did we obey? The question hardly occurred to us. We had formed the habit of deferring to our parents and teachers. All the same we knew very well that it was because they were our parents, because they were our teachers. Therefore, in our eyes, their authority came less from themselves than from their status in relation to us Chapter I: Moral Obligation”

“The spectacle of what religions have been in the past, of what certain religions still are to”

“I see with horror that the 'Salon Automne' is looming, for I haven't got, and shan't have, all I meant to be able to show there, the big stillife ['Harmony in Red'] has taken up so much of my time; but since I am content with the outcome, I tell myself one can't hope to be fast as well as good. Letter to Sergei Shchukin [the Russian buyer of his still”

“Rules have no existence outside of individuals: otherwise a good professor would be as great a genius as Racine . p. 2”

“Underlying this succession of moments which constitutes the superficial existence of beings and things, and which is continually modifying and transforming them, one can search for a truer, more essential character, which the artist will seize so that he may give to reality a more lasting interpretation. p. 37”

“For me all is in the conception. I must therefore have a clear vision of the whole from the beginning. p. 37”

“I simply try to put down colours which render my sensation. p. 38”

“There is an impelling proportion of tones that may lead me to change the shape of a figure or to transform my composition. Until I have achieved this proportion in all the parts of a composition I strive towards it and keep on working. Then a moment comes when all the parts have found their definite relationships, and from then on it would be impossible for me to add a stroke to my picture without having to repaint it entirely. p. 38”

“What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or disturbing subject matter, an art which could be for every mental worker, for the businessman as well as the man of letters, for example, a soothing, calming influence on the mind, something like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue. p. 38”

“The simplest means are those which best enable an artist to express himself. His means of expression must derive almost all of necessity from his temperament. p. 39”

“Suppose I want to paint a woman's body: first of all I imbue it with grace and charm, but I know that I must give something more. I will condense the meaning of this body by seeking its essential lines. The charm will be less apparent at first glance, but it must eventually emerge from the new image which will have a broader meaning, one more fully human. p. 48”

“What I am after, above all, is expression. Sometimes it has been conceded that I have a certain technical ability but that, my ambition being limited, I am unable to proceed beyond a purely visual satisfaction such as can be procured from the mere sight of a picture. But the purpose of a painter must not be conceived as separate from his pictorial means, and these pictorial means must be the more complete (I do not mean complicated) the deeper is his thought. I am unable to distinguish between the feeling I have for life and my way of expressing it. pp. 409”

“I am a parcel of vain strivings tied By a chance bond together, Dangling this way and that, their links Were made so loose and wide, Methinks, For milder weather. "Sic Vita", st. 1. The Dial (July 1841) p. 81”

“But now I see I was not plucked for naught, And after in life's vase Of glass set while I might survive, But by a kind hand brought Alive To a strange place. "Sic Vita", st. 6. The Dial (July 1841) p. 82”

“Natural History of Massachusetts”