#nation

The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first and love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life. ↗

— Theodore Roosevelt

#duty #nationalism #life

Who but the artist has the power to open man up, to set free the imagination? The others - priest, teacher, saint, statesman, warrior - hold us to the path of history. They keep us chained to the rock, that the vultures may eat out our hearts. It is the artist who has the courage to go against the crowd; he is the unrecognized "hero of our time" - and of all time. ↗

— Henry Miller

#artists #freedom #imagination #art

Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. That surrender, even the smallest act of giving up, stays with me. So when I feel like quitting, I ask myself, which would I rather live with? ↗

— Lance Armstrong

#pain #perseverance #quitting #life

Poetry, like jazz, is one of those dazzling diamonds of creative industry that help human beings make sense out of the comedies and tragedies that contextualize our lives. ↗

— Aberjhani

#cultural-arts #famous-poets #humanity #jazz #jazz-appreciation-month

It's freezing up here. What did you use to keep warm?" "Indignation," said Michelangelo. "Best fuel I know. Never burns out. ↗

— Irving Stone

#art #artists #indignation #anger

In order to survive, a plurality of true communities would require not egalitarianism and tolerance but knowledge, an understanding of the necessity of local differences, and respect. Respect, I think, always implies imagination - the ability to see one another, across our inevitable differences, as living souls. (pg. 181, Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community) ↗

— Wendell Berry

#imagination #knowledge #respect #art

In liberating Iraq, we have rid the nation and the rest of the world from the danger of Saddam Hussein. ↗

— Elizabeth Dole

#hussein #iraq #liberating #nation #rest

The Imagination merely enables us to wander into the darkness of the unknown where, by the dim light of the knowledge we carry, we may glimpse something that seems of interest. But when we bring it out and examine it more closely it usually proves to be only trash whose glitter had caught our attention. Imagination is at once the source of all hope and inspiration but also of frustration. To forget this is to court despair. ↗

— William Ian Beardmore Beveridge

#frustration #hope #imagination #inspiration #art

Christians . . . ought not to be threatened by fantasy and imagination. Great painting is not "photographic": think of the Old Testament art commanded by God. There were blue pomegranates on the robes of the priest who went into the Holy of Holies. In nature there are no blue pomegranates. Christian artists do not need to be threatened by fantasy and imagination, for they have a basis for knowing the difference between them and the real world "out there." The Christian is the really free person--he is free to have imagination. This too is our heritage. The Christian is the one whose imagination should fly beyond the stars. ↗

— Francis A. Schaeffer

#art

When the waiter brought the cheese-board, there was a large carrot carved in the shape of a mermaid sitting between the Dolcelatte and the Pecorino. Teo could have sworn that the carrot-mermaid flexed her tail and plunged her little hand inside a smelly Gorgonzola. 'Tyromancy, ye know,' remarked the mermaid. 'The Ancient Art of Divination by Cheese.' Then she pulled her tiny hand out and inspected the green cheese-mold on her tiny fingers. 'Lackaday!' she moaned. 'Stinking! It goes poorly for Venice and Teodora, it do! ↗

— Michelle Lovric

#divination #foretelling #humour #mermaid #art