#abstract

But this emphasis would be lavished in vain, if it served, in your opinion, only to abstract a general type from phenomena whose particularity in our work would remain the essential thing for you, and whose original arrangement could be broken up only artificially. ↗

— Jacques Lacan

#arrangement #artificially #broken #could #emphasis

What is important, then, is not that the critic should possess a correct abstract definition of beauty for the intellect, but a certain kind of temperament, the power of being deeply moved by the presence of beautiful objects. ↗

— Walter Pater

#beautiful #beauty #being #certain #correct

Reflective abstraction, however, is based not on individual actions but on coordinated actions. ↗

— Jean Piaget

#actions #based #coordinated #however #individual

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality. ↗

— Pablo Picasso

#abstract art #always #art #must #reality

Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn't have any beginning or any end. He didn't mean it as a compliment, but it was. ↗

— Jackson Pollock

#any #back #beginning #compliment #confronts

From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from one attribute of man - the function of his reasoning mind. ↗

— Ayn Rand

#attribute #comes #everything #function #highest

In contrast, traditional classical music starts from an abstract musical schema. This is then notated and only expressed in concrete sound as a last stage, when it is performed. ↗

— Pierre Schaeffer

#classical #classical music #concrete #contrast #expressed

I have always tried to write in a simple way, using down-to-earth and not abstract words. ↗

— Georges Simenon

#always #down-to-earth #i #simple #simple way

Abstraction is everybody's zero but nobody's nought. ↗

— Robert Smithson

#everybody #nobody #nought #zero

History is representational, while time is abstract; both of these artifices may be found in museums, where they span everybody's own vacancy. ↗

— Robert Smithson

#artifices #both #everybody #found #history