#abstract

Exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms: and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism. ↗

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge

#aphorism #best #consists #exclusively #greatest

It makes no difference whether a work is naturalistic or abstract; every visual expression follows the same fundamental laws. ↗

— Hans Hofmann

#difference #every #expression #follows #fundamental

I was a student at Harvard, and that's where I learned about so-called avant-garde music. Jackson Pollock, abstract expressionism and painting were well known at this time. ↗

— Henry Flynt

#abstract #avant-garde #expressionism #harvard #i

Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works. ↗

— John Keats

#beauty #blame #critic #effect #him

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

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