Famous Quotes & Sayings

Henry David Thoreau

I would that our farmers when they cut down a forest felt some of that awe which the old Romans did when they came to thin, or letin the light to, a consecrated grove (lucum conlucare), that is, would believe that it is sacred to some god. The Roman made an expiatory offering, and prayed, Whatever god or goddess thou art to whom this grove is sacred, be propitious to me, my family, and children, etc.

Henry David Thoreau

Already nature is serving all those uses which science slowly derives on a much higher and grander scale to him that will be served by her. When the sunshine falls on the path of the poet, he enjoys all those pure benefits and pleasures which the arts slowly and partially realize from age to age. The winds which fan his cheek waft him the sum of that profit and happiness which their lagging inventions supply.

Henry David Thoreau

The true poem is not that which the public read. There is always a poem not printed on paper,... in the poet's life. It is what hehas become through his work. Not how is the idea expressed in stone, or on canvas or paper, is the question, but how far it has obtained form and expression in the life of the artist. His true work will not stand in any prince's gallery.

Henry David Thoreau

Homeliness is almost as great a merit in a book as in a house, if the reader would abide there. It is next to beauty, and a very high art.

Henry David Thoreau

There is always some accident in the best things, whether thoughts or expressions or deeds. The memorable thought, the happy expression, the admirable deed are only partly ours.

Henry David Thoreau

I must walk toward Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving, and I may say that mankind progress from east to west. We go eastward to realize history and study the works of art and literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go westward as into the future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure.

Henry David Thoreau

Nowadays the host does not admit you to his hearth, but has got the mason to build one for yourself somewhere in his alley, and hospitality is the art of keeping you at the greatest distance.

Henry David Thoreau

A book should contain pure discoveries, glimpses of terra firma, though by shipwrecked mariners, and not the art of navigation by those who have never been out of sight of land.

Henry David Thoreau

The imagination, give it the least license, dives deeper and soars higher than Nature goes.

Henry David Thoreau

If we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only fact, or the description of one actual phenomenon, to infer all the particular results at that point.

Henry David Thoreau

Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts - a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments.

Henry David Thoreau

The sugar maple is remarkable for its clean ankle. The groves of these trees looked like vast forest sheds, their branches stopping short at a uniform height, four or five feet from the ground, like eaves, as if they had been trimmed by art, so that you could look under and through the whole grove with its leafy canopy, as under a tent whose curtain is raised.

Henry David Thoreau

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who have understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks,-who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering.

Henry David Thoreau

The sea, vast and wild as it is, bears thus the waste and wrecks of human art to its remotest shore. There is no telling what it may not vomit up.

Henry David Thoreau

Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or art.

Henry David Thoreau

...A traveller is to be reverenced as such. His profession is the best symbol of our life. Going from - toward; it is the history of every one of us. It is a great art to saunter.

Henry David Thoreau

The true man of science will know nature better by his finer organization; he will smell, taste, see, hear, feel, better than other men. His will be a deeper and finer experience. We do not learn by inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy. It is with science as with ethics,--we cannot know truth by contrivance and method; the Baconian is as false as any other, and with all the helps of machinery and the arts, the most scientific will still be the healthiest and friendliest man, and possess a more perfect Indian wisdom.

Gyorgy Ligeti

My grandfather was not a musician but he was an artist - a painter, a decorative painter.

H. L. Mencken

Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops

H. L. Mencken

The true function of art is to criticize, embellish and edit nature… the artist is a sort of impassioned proof-reader, blue penciling the bad spelling of God.

Jean Genet

Added to the moral solitude of the murderer comes the solitude of the artist, which can acknowledge no authority, save that of another artist.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Whatever may be our natural talents, the art of writing is not acquired all at once.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Women, in general, are not attracted to art at all, nor knowledge, and not at all to genius.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Sovereigns always see with pleasure a taste for the arts of amusement and superfluity, which do not result in the exportation of bullion, increase among their subjects. They very well know that, besides nourishing that littleness of mind which is proper to slavery, the increase of artificial wants only binds so many more chains upon the people.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Every artists wants to be applauded

Jillian Mayer

A young artist can become popular more quickly with the Internet providing instant access to ones work.

Jill Sobule

I'm a bit of a lefty. I like the idea of art and music collectives.

Jill Soloway

In my own work I am invested in art as a way to break through impasses, whether those impasses are personal, social, or political.

Jill Soloway

I haven't made art about Israel. There's a covert subtext of Jewish identity in my artwork.

Jill Scott

The best gift I was ever given was the arts. My mum gave me those on a silver platter. Growing up, her and my grandmother would take me to ballets, classical concerts, even smoky jazz clubs I wasn't supposed to be in!

Jill Scott

When I sing, I have to live in that moment, so my audience can feel that. That is my reason for doing art.

Jill Scott

Whatever happens in my life, whether I stand up or I fall down, whatever the case, I'm going to use it in my art. Why? Because I'm an artist and I have to.