Art is a concrete and personal and rather childish thing after all--no matter what people do to graft it into science and make it ...sociological and psychological; it is no good at all unless it is let alone to be itself--a game of make-believe, or re-production, very exciting and delightful to people who have an ear for it or an eye for it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
[If not re-elected in 1864] then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the el...ection and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he can not possibly save it afterwards.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, ...society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have often thought that if photography were difficult in the true sense of the term--meaning that the creation of a simple photo...graph would entail as much time and effort as the production of a good watercolor or etching--there would be a vast improvement in total output. The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... this dream that men shall cease to waste strength in competition and shall come to pool their powers of production is coming t...o pass all over the earth.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As a perfect Tragedy is the noblest Production of human Nature, so it is capable of giving the Mind one of the most delightful and... most improving Entertainments. A virtuous Man (says Seneca) strugling [sic] with Misfortunes, is such a Spectacle as Gods might look upon with Pleasure: And such a Pleasure it is which one meets with in the Representation of a well-written Tragedy. Diversions of this kind wear out of our Thoughts every thing that is mean and little. They cherish and cultivate that Humanity which is the Ornament of our Nature. They soften Insolence, sooth [sic] Affliction, and subdue the Mind to the Dispensations of Providence.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I was asked to-night why I refuse to have truck with intellectuals after business hours. But of course I won't. 1. I am not an int...ellectual. Two minutes' talk with Aldous Huxley, William Glock, or any of the New Statesman crowd would expose me utterly. 2. I am too tired after my day's work to man the intellectual palisade. 3. When my work is finished I want to eat, drink, smoke, and relax. 4. I don't know very much, but what I do know I know better than anybody, and I don't want to argue about it. I know what I think about an actor or an actress, and am not interested in what anybody else thinks. My mind is not a bed to be made and re-made.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Art to me was a state, it didn't need to be an accomplishment. By any of the standards of production, achievement, performance, I ...was not an artist. But I always thought of myself as one.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »