Quotes
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There is the happiness which comes from creative effort. The joy of dreaming, creating, building, whether in painting a picture, writing an epic, singing a song, composing a symphony, devising new invention, creating a vast industry.
Art teaches nothing except the significance of life.
Writing is its own reward.
As long as that spark of passion is missing there is no human significance in the performance.
Tropic of Cancer
Every time you come to the limit of what is demanded of you, you are faced with the same problem - to be yourself!
Tropic of Capricorn
The worst sin that can be committed against the artist is to take him at his word, to see in his work a fulfillment instead of an horizon.
Once I thought that to be human was the highest aim a man could have, but I see now that it was meant to destroy me. Today I am proud to say that I am inhuman, that I belong not to men and governments, that I have nothing to do with creeds and principles. I have nothing to do with the creaking machinery of humanity - I belong to the earth!
Honest criticism means nothing: what one wants is unrestrained passion, fire for fire.
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On Anger: "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."
Essays
Essays
On Destiny: "Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today."
Human, All Too Human
Human, All Too Human
On Friendship: "A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."
Essays
Essays