Rainer Maria Rilke (December 04, 1875 – December 29, 1926) Again and again in history some people wake up. They have no ground in the crowd and they move to broader, deeper laws. They carry strange customs with them and demand room for bold and audacious action. The future speaks ruthlessly through them. They change …
Pablo Picasso On Art
Pablo Picasso (October 25, 1881 - April 08, 1973) A painting is not thought out and settled in advance. While it is being done, it changes as one's thoughts change. And when it's finished, it goes on changing, according to the state of mind of whoever is looking at it.
Philip Larkin On Jazz
Philip Larkin (August 09, 1922 – December 02, 1985) Jazz is a parallel case in poetry; one's enthusiasm starts in one's adolescence and never seems to flag. In many ways I prefer it to poetry. I listen to it while dressing in the morning, turning to it in a way I should turn to poetry …
Maria Popova On Speaking And Listening
Maria Popova (July 28, 1984 -) Every act of communication is an act of tremendous courage in which we give ourselves over to two parallel possibilities: the possibility of planting into another mind a seed sprouted in ours and watching it blossom into a breathtaking flower of mutual understanding; and the possibility of being wholly …
Mark Strand On When The Vacation Is Over For Good
Mark Strand (April 11, 1934 - November 29, 2014) It will be strange Knowing at last it couldn’t go on forever, The certain voice telling us over and over That nothing would change, And remembering too, Because by then it will all be done with, the way Things were, and how we had wasted time …
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James Baldwin On Responsibility
James Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) A great deal of what I say just leaves me open, I suppose, to a vast amount of misunderstanding. A great deal of what I say is based on an assumption which I hold and don’t always state. You know my fury about people is based …
Robert M Pirsig On Buddha
Robert M Pirsig (September 6, 1928 – April 24, 2017) The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower.
