Quotable Quotes (25 page)

 

Inside every man there is a poet who died young.

—
S
TEPHAN
K
ANFER

 

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.

—
P
ABLO
P
ICASSO

 

Every artist was first an amateur.

—
R
ALPH
W
ALDO
E
MERSON

 

The greatest artist was once a beginner.

—
Farmer's Digest

 

All art, like all love, is rooted in heartache.

—
A
LFRED
S
TIEGLITZ

 

What art offers is space—a certain breathing room for the spirit.

—
J
OHN
U
PDIKE

 

More important than a work of art itself is what it will sow. Art can die, a painting can disappear. What counts is the seed.

—
J
OAN
M
IRÓ

 

Art is the triumph over chaos.

—
J
OHN
C
HEEVER

 

What is art but a way of seeing?

—
T
HOMAS
B
ERGER

Being Invisible

 

A great artist is never poor.

—
I
SAK
D
INESEN

Anecdotes of Destiny

 

Talent is a flame. Genius is a fire.

—
B
ERN
W
ILLIAMS

 

No one can arrive from being talented alone. God gives talent; work transforms talent into genius.

—
A
NNA
P
AVLOVA

 

Discipline is the refining fire by which talent becomes ability.

—
R
OY
L
.
S
MITH

 

Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self-solicitude is the enemy of well-being.

—
J
OHN
U
PDIKE

Odd Jobs

 

When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.

—
J
OHN
R
USKIN

 

I created nothing; I invented nothing; I imagined nothing; I perverted nothing; I simply discovered drama in real life.

—
B
ERNARD
S
HAW

 

There's no need to believe what an artist says. Believe what he does; that's what counts.

—
D
AVID
H
OCKNEY

 

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

—
P
ABLO
P
ICASSO

 

Really we create nothing. We merely plagiarize nature.

—
J
EAN
B
AITAILLON

 

A great city is one that handles its garbage and art equally well.

—
B
OB
T
ALBERT

 

A good snapshot stops a moment from running away.

—
E
UDORA
W
ELTY

 

The cinema has no boundary; it is a ribbon of dream.

—
O
RSON
W
ELLES

 

Of course, there must be subtleties. Just make sure you make them obvious.

—
B
ILLY
W
ILDER

 

It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.

—
I
SAAC
A
SIMOV

Foundation

 

Simplicity, carried to an extreme, becomes elegance.

—
J
ON
F
RANKLIN

Writing for Story

 

It is only by introducing the young to great literature, drama and music, and to the excitement of great science that we open to them the possibilities that lie within the human spirit — enable them to see visions and dream dreams.

—
E
RIC
A
NDERSON

 

Man creates culture and through culture creates himself.

—
P
OPE
J
OHN
P
AUL
II

in
Osservatore Romano

I
N THE LONG ETERNITY OF TIME . . .

 

It is easier to accept the message of the stars than the message of the salt desert. The stars speak of man's insignificance in the long eternity of time; the deserts speak of his insignificance right now.

—
E
DWIN
W
AY
T
EALE

 

Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, where's it going to end?

—
T
OM
S
TOPPARD

 

Forever is a long time, but not as long as it was yesterday.

—
D
ENNIS
H
'
O
RGNIES

 

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.

—
H
ENRY
D
AVID
T
HOREAU

 

Time neither subtracts nor divides, but adds at such a pace it seems like multiplication.

—
B
OB
T
ALBERT

 

The future is the past returning through another gate.

—
A
RNOLD
H
.
G
LASOW

 

Snatching the eternal out of the desperately fleeting is the great magic trick of human existence.

—
T
ENNESSEE
W
ILLIAMS

in
The New York Times

 

Time is a versatile performer. It flies, marches on, heals all wounds, runs out and will tell.

—
F
RANKLIN
P
.
J
ONES

 

Time goes, you say? Ah, no! Alas, Time stays, we go.

—
A
USTIN
D
OBSON

 

Time marks us while we are marking time.

—
T
HEODORE
R
OETHKE

Straw for the Fire

 

Time wastes our bodies and our wits, but we waste time, so we are quits.

—
Verse and Worse

 

In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes: so with present time.

—
L
EONARDO DA
V
INCI

 

You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.

—
J
OAN
B
AEZ

 

The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is, rather, born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life.

—
E
RIC
H
OFFER

 

Yesterday is a canceled check; tomorrow is a promissory note; today is ready cash—use it.

—
K
AY
L
YONS

 

How you spend your time is more important than how you spend your money. Money mistakes can be corrected, but time is gone forever.

—
D
AVID
B
.
N
ORRIS

 

Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its shortness.

—
J
EAN DE
L
A
B
RUYÈRE

 

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.

—
W
ILL
R
OGERS

 

Today's greatest labor-saving device is tomorrow.

—
T
OM
W
ILSON

 

Mañana is often the busiest day of the week.

—
S
PANISH PROVERB

 

One of these days is none of these days.

—
H
ENRI
T
UBACH

 

By the streets of “by and by” one arrives at the house of “never.”

—
S
PANISH PROVERB

 

Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today, because if you enjoy it today you can do it again tomorrow.

—
J
AMES
A
.
M
ICHENER

 

Nothing adds to a person's leisure time like doing things when they are supposed to be done.

—
O
.
A
.
B
ATTISTA

 

For disappearing acts, it's hard to beat what happens to the eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work.

—
D
OUG
L
ARSON

 

When we don't waste time, we always have enough.

—
J
EAN
D
RAPEAU

 

As if we could kill time without injuring eternity!

—
H
ENRY
D
AVID
T
HOREAU

 

A man who has to be punctually at a certain place at five o'clock has the whole afternoon ruined for him already.

—
L
IN
Y
UTANG

The Importance of Living

 

The surest way to be late is to have plenty of time.

—
L
EO
K
ENNEDY

 

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are.

—
M
ARY
J
EAN
I
RION

 

Butterflies count not months but moments, and yet have time enough.

—
R
ABINDRANATH
T
AGORE

 

Time, for all its smuggling in of new problems, conspicuously cancels others.

—
C
LARA
W
INSTON

in
The Massachusetts Review

 

Time has a wonderful way of weeding out the trivial.

—
R
ICHARD
B
EN
S
APIR

Quest

 

I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read and all the friends I want to see.

—
J
OHN
B
URROUGHS

 

Yesterday is experience. Tomorrow is hope. Today is getting from one to the other as best we can.

—
J
OHN
M
.
H
ENRY

 

You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by; but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by.

—
J
AMES
M
.
B
ARRIE

 

We are tomorrow's past.

—
M
ARY
W
EBB

Precious Bane

 

The present is the point at which time touches eternity.

—
C
.
S
.
L
EWIS

Screwtape Letters

 

Life is uncharted territory. It reveals its story one moment at a time.

—
L
EO
B
USCAGLIA

in
Executive Health Report

 

I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.

—
A
LBERT
E
INSTEIN

 

There is no distance on this earth as far away as yesterday.

—
R
OBERT
N
ATHAN

So Love Returns

 

The past is really almost as much a work of the imagination as the future.

—
J
ESSAMYN
W
EST

 

He who believes that the past cannot be changed has not yet written his memoirs.

—
T
ORVALD
G
AHLIN

 

There is a time to let things happen and a time to make things happen.

—
H
UGH
P
RATHER

Notes on Love and Courage

 

Every man regards his own life as the New Year's Eve of time.

—
J
EAN
P
AUL
R
ICHTER

 

The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.

—
D
EAN
A
CHESON

 

I love best to have each thing in its season, doing without it at all other times.

—
H
ENRY
D
AVID
T
HOREAU

 

Life is not dated merely by years. Events are sometimes the best calendars.

—
B
ENJAMIN
D
ISRAELI

 

Time has no divisions to mark its passage; there is never a thunderstorm to announce the beginning of a new year. It is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.

—
T
HOMAS
M
ANN

 

Life is not a “brief candle.” It is a splendid torch that I want to make burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

—
B
ERNARD
S
HAW

 

A
LL THE ART OF LIVING 
. . .

 

All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.

—
H
AVELOCK
E
LLIS

 

God asks no man whether he will accept life. That is not the choice. One must take it. The only choice is how.

—
H
ENRY
W
ARD
B
EECHER

 

If we live good lives, the times are also good. As we are, such are the times.

—
S
T.
A
UGUSTINE

 

We are here to add what we can to, not to get what we can from, life.

—
S
IR
W
ILLIAM
O
SLER

 

Presence is more than just being there.

—
M
ALCOLM
S
.
F
ORBES

The Further Sayings of Chairman Malcolm

 

There are three things that if a man does not know, he cannot live long in this world: what is too much for him, what is too little for him and what is just right for him.

—
S
WAHILI PROVERB

 

You only live once. But if you work it right, once is enough.

—
F
RED
A
LLEN

 

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.

—
L
IN
Y
UTANG

 

There is more to life than increasing its speed.

—
M
OHANDAS
K
.
G
ANDHI

 

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

—
A
LBERT
E
INSTEIN

 

I believe the art of living consists not so much in complicating simple things as in simplifying things that are not.

—
F
RANÇOIS
H
ERTEL

 

Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.

—
C
HARLES
D
UDLEY
W
ARNER

 

Seize from every moment its unique novelty, and do not prepare your joys.

—
A
NDRÉ
G
IDE

Nourritures Terrestres

 

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.

—
W
.
S
OMERSET
M
AUGHAM

 

If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.

—
L
IN
Y
UTANG

 

He does not seem to me to be a free man who does not sometimes do nothing.

—
C
ICERO

 

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

—
A
NNIE
D
ILLARD

The Writing Life

 

A holiday gives one a chance to look backward and forward, to reset oneself by an inner compass.

—
M
AY
S
ARTON

At Seventy (A Journal)

 

The time to relax is when you don't have time for it.

—
S
YDNEY
J
.
H
ARRIS

 

A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in.

—
R
OBERT
O
RBEN

 

The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a star.