#l

For one thing is needful: that a human being should attain satisfaction with himself, whether it be by means of this or that poetry or art; only then is a human being at all tolerable to behold. Whoever is dissatisfied with himself is constantly ready for revenge, and we others will be his victims, if only by having to endure his ugly sight. ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#creativity #nietzsche #vocation #art

Ideally a painter (and, generally, an artist) should not become conscious of his insights: without taking the detour through his conscious reflection, his progressive steps, mysterious even to himself, should enter so swiftly into the work that he is unable to recognize them in the moment of transition. ↗

— Rainer Maria Rilke

#art #creation #creativity #perception #self-knowledge

I'm lucky enough to be able to make films and so I don't need a psychiatrist. I can sort out my fears and all those things with my work. That's an enormous privilege. That's the privilege of all artists, to be able to sort out their unhappiness and their neuroses in order to create something. ↗

— Michael Haneke

#artists #create #enormous #enough #fears

General theories are everywhere condemned; the doctrine of the Rights of Man is dismissed with the doctrine of the Fall of Man. Atheism itself is too theological for us to-day. Revolution itself is too much of a system; liberty itself is too much of a restraint. We will have no generalizations. Mr. Bernard Shaw has put the view in a perfect epigram: 'The golden rule is that there is no golden rule.' We are more and more to discuss details in art, politics, literature. A man's opinion on tramcars matters; his opinion on Botticelli matters; his opinion on all things does not matter. He may turn over and explore a million objects, but he must not find that strange object, the universe; for if he does he will have a religion, and be lost. Everything matters--except everything. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#generalization #modernism #postmodernity #art

Competition is the death of art. ↗

— Dana Gould

#competition #death #keep-it-crispy #pete-holmes #weird

Aristocracy's only an admission that certain traits which we call fine - courage and honor and beauty and all that sort of thing - can best be developed in a favorable environment, where you don't have the warpings of ignorance and necessity. ↗

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

#beauty #courage #honor #ignorance #money

And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart; 'till the Devil wispered from behind the leaves "it's pretty, but is it art? ↗

— Rudyard Kipling

#what-is-art #art

Art forms that appeal to [leftists] tend to focus on ... defeat and despair ... as if there were no hope of accomplishing anything through rational calculation. ↗

— Theodore Kaczynski

#despair #left #leftism #leftists #reason

A book can never be anything more than the impress of its author's thoughts; and the value of these will lie either in the matter about which he has thought, or in the form which his thoughts take, in other words, what it is that he has thought about it. ↗

— Arthur Schopenhauer

#authorship #schopenhauer #writing #art

The historic beauty of BJJ rests not with its ability to allow a smaller man to maim a larger man, but with its ability to allow any man of any size to survive. ↗

— Cameron Conaway

#martial-arts #size #survival #art