Ilovebeds > Ilovebeds's Quotes

“Art is all about starting again”
― David Bayles, Art and Fear

“Quitting is fundamentally different from stopping. The latter happens all the time. Quitting happens once. Quitting means not starting again — and art is all about starting again.”
― David Bayles, Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

“ART IS MADE BY ORDINARY PEOPLE. Creatures having only virtues can hardly be imagined making art. It’s difficult to picture the Virgin Mary painting landscapes. Or Batman throwing pots. The flawless creature wouldn’t need to make art.”
― David Bayles, Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

“fears about yourself prevent you from doing your best work, while fears about your reception by others prevent you from doing your own work.”
― David Bayles, Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

“But the important point here is not that you have — or don’t have — what other artists have, but rather that it doesn’t matter. Whatever they have is something needed to do their work — it wouldn’t help you in your work even if you had it. Their magic is theirs. You don’t lack it. You don’t need it. It has nothing to do with you. Period. EXPECTATIONS”
― David Bayles, Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

“All good ideas arrive by chance.”
― Max Ernst

“The concept of a supermind running the universe objectively, without compassion, is not new. Several religions are built around it. Thinking of God in these terms is not heresy but is advanced theology. The old-time God—the big bearded man sitting on a throne in the sky—is dead.”
― John A. Keel, THE EIGHTH TOWER: On Ultraterrestrials and the Superspectrum

“What is an obsession? It is a form of programming that has gotten completely out of hand. Religious fanatics are a prime example, as are those people who become enveloped in a political concept. Most of man’s progress has come about as a result of obsessions. The Wright brothers were not just tinkerers with an idea; their idea swallowed them up. Most leaders are obsessed with power or possessed by egos so large their only concern is their place in history. I have known writers obsessed with a single subject. Like Bobby Fischer and chess, anything and everything outside their subject seems meaningless. Any art form—music, painting, dance—is done best by those who are completely possessed by it. Such possession often borders on madness. This world would be a sorry place without such madmen.”
― John A. Keel, THE EIGHTH TOWER: On Ultraterrestrials and the Superspectrum

“The standard definition of God, “God is light,” is just a simple way of saying that God is energy. Electromagnetic energy. He is not a He but an It; a field of energy that permeates the entire universe and, perhaps, feeds off the energy generated by its component parts.”
― John A. Keel, THE EIGHTH TOWER: On Ultraterrestrials and the Superspectrum

“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”
― Francis Bacon, The Oxford Francis Bacon IV: The Advancement of Learning

“Home is what you take with you, not what you leave behind.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

“People who say change is impossible are usually pretty happy with things just as they are.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The City We Became

“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”
― St. Thomas Aquinas

“Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“Thus, a good man, though a slave, is free; but a wicked man, though a king, is a slave. For he serves, not one man alone, but what is worse, as many masters as he has vices.”
― Augustine of Hippo, City of God

“No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.”
― Mary Shelley

“As Samuel Johnson purportedly wrote, “The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.”
― Adam M. Grant, Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success

“A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms

“To be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great.”
― HEGEL

“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“Your perceptions are derived from your feelings and your ability to be yourself, to own and trust yourself, and to say what you feel, even when it may be diametrically opposed to everyone eles's opinion. You may be called the Devil Incarnate. You may feel like cow pies are being thrown at you. Sometimes that is part of being true to yourself.”
― Barbara Marciniak, Family of Light: Pleiadian Tales and Lessons in Living

“The only work really worth doing — the only work you can do convincingly — is the work that focuses on the things you care about. To not focus on those issues is to deny the constants in your life.”
― David Bayles, Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking