On the Road to Anarchism — Art

“All great art is by its very essence in conflict with the society with which it exists. It expresses the truth about the existence regardless of whether this truth serves or hinders the survival purpose of a given society. All great art is revolutionary because it touches upon the reality of man and questions the reality of the various transitory forms of human society.” – Erich Fromm

“I don’t build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.” – Howard Roark in Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

“The problem is not those who dream, but those who can only dream.” – Ayn Rand

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.

The poet ranks far below the painter in the representation of visible things, and far below the musician in that of invisible things. -Leonardo da Vinci

“The artist must create a spark before he can make a fire and before art is born, the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his own creation.” – Auguste Rodin

“Choice soul, in whom, as in a glass, we see,
Mirrored in thy pure form and delicate,
What beauties heaven and nature can create,
The paragon of all their works to be!

Fair soul, in whom love, pity, piety,
Have found a home, as from thy outward state
We clearly read, and are so rare and great
That they adorn none other like to thee!

Love takes me captive; beauty binds my soul;
Pity and mercy with their gentle eyes
Wake in my heart a hope that cannot cheat.

What law, what destiny, what fell control,
What cruelty, or late or soon, denies
That death should spare perfection so complete?” – Michelangelo

“The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place; from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.” – Pablo Picasso

“At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.”- Salvador Dali

“Democratic societies are unfit for the publication of such thunderous revelations as I am in the habit of making.” – Salvador Dali

“If I can bring joy into the world, if I can get people to stop thinking about their pain for a moment, or the fact the tomorrow morning they’re going to get up and tell their boss off… then I’ll be successful.” – Bobby McFerrin

“Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.” – Vincent Van Gogh