Work & Craft

“Everywhere there is craft and technique, everywhere there is artistry and form. Art itself, technique, is ponderous and clumsy, and because of it awkwardness it obstructs that inner element.. .All craft, technique, and artistry, like anything beautiful, results in futility and vulgarity. [critical quote on Constructivism artists]”

“The reforms of Diocletian were a work of genius and made many people temporarily happy, but failed in the end and added greatly to human misery. I see no reason why this inferior modern copy of them should succeed.”

“God gave us faculties for our use; each of them will receive its proper reward. Then do not let us try to charm them to sleep, but permit them to do their work until divinely called to something higher.”

“If we give the attributes of a medium to the artist, we must then deny him the state of consciousness on the aesthetic plane about what he is doing or why he is doing it. All this decisions in the artistic execution of the work rest with pure intuition and cannot be translated into a self-analysis, spoken or written, or even thought out.”

“..we must remember that this 'art coefficient' is a personal expression of art 'à l'état brute', that is, still in a raw state, which must be 'refined' as pure sugar from molasses, by the spectator; the digit of this coefficient has no bearing whatsoever on his verdict.. ..the role of the spectator is to determine the weight of the work on the aesthetic scale.”

“The brave man carves out his fortune, and every man is the son of his own works.”

“We could figure out ways with small aerospace companies to do a low-cost spacecraft and lander. But we could not find a way to do a low-cost launcher, unless we went to the Russians.”

“In comparing various authors with one another, I have discovered that some of the gravest and latest writers have transcribed, word for word, from former works, without making acknowledgment.”

“While standing on top of Everest, I looked across the valley, towards the other great peak, Makalu, and mentally worked out a route about how it could be climbed… it showed me that, even though I was standing on top of the world, it wasn’t the end of everything for me, by any means. I was still looking beyond to other interesting challenges.”

“Tuition costs are outrageous. Fortunately, they gave me a scholarship…so I only had to cover living expenses, books, etc., by working.”

“We have watered the trees that blossom in the summer-time. Now let's sprinkle those whose flowering-time is past. That will be a better deed, because we shall not be working for a reward.”

“A Bird cannot fly with one wing only. Human space flight cannot develop any further without active participation of women... If women can be railroad workers in Russia, why can't they fly in space?”

“To begin the so much desired work of the conversion of the Hindoos and to seize on the Brahmins, ... and make them examples to the other inferior castes, in becoming Mussulmans, by suffering circumcision and being compelled to eat beef: accordingly many Brahmins were seized in or about the month of July 1788...”

“We must find new lands from which we can easily obtain raw materials and at the same time exploit the cheap slave labor that is available from the natives of the colonies. The colonies would also provide a dumping ground for the surplus goods produced in our factories.”

“And then, as you can see, I give greater and greater importance to the materials I use in my work [c. 1936]. A rich and vigorous material seems necessary to me in order to give the viewer that smack in the face that must happen before reflection intervenes. In this way, poetry is expressed through a plastic medium, and it speaks its own language.”

“-->* They can expect nothing but their labour for their pains.”

“Dynamism is also the forming formula for Futurists works; i.e. dynamism is the additional element that transforms the perception of one state of phenomena to another, for example, from a static to a dynamic perception.”

“I am working again on my painting 'Moscow' ['Moscow I' ('Москва I'), 1916]. It is slowly taking shape in my imagination. And what was in the realm of wishing is now assuming real forms. What I have been lacking with this idea was depth and richness of sound, very earnest, complex, and easy at the same time.”

“[Their] things [works of Die Brücke-artists] must be exhibited. But I think it is incorrect to immortalize them in the document [Almanac] of our modern art (and, this is what our book ought to be) or as a more or less decisive, leading factor. At any rate I am against large reproductions [of Die Brücke paintings in The Blaue Reiter Almanac].”

“There in the fane a beauteous creature stands, <br> The first best work of the Creator's hands; <br> Whose slender limbs inadequately bear <br> A full orbed bosom, and a weight of care; <br> Whose teeth like pearls, whose lips like Bimbas show, <br> And fawn-like eyes still tremble as they glow.”

“Consequently, in the chain of reactions accompanying the creative act, a link is missing. This gap which represents the inability of the artist to express fully his intention, this difference between what he intended to realize and did realize, is the personal 'art coefficient', contained in the work.”

“If we observe the totality of Camille Pissarro's works, we find there, despite the fluctuations, not only an extreme artistic will which never lies, but what is more, an essentially intuitive pure-bred art.. .He looked at everybody, you say! Why not? Everyone looked at him, too, but denied him. He was one of my masters and I do not deny him.”

“When I first saw the work of the Impressionists, Van Gogh, Van Dongen and the Fauves, I admired it. But I had to seek the true way alone.”

“I would like to show you one of my favourite meals up here, which is a chicken with s, , and s. And I would like to try and put the ingredients together for you. See how it works in space.”

“To be looked at [from the other side of his art-work 'The Glass'] with one eye, close to, for almost an hour.”

“If a professor thinks what matters most<br />Is to have gained an academic post<br />Where he can earn a livelihood, and then<br />Neglect research, let controversy rest,<br />He's but a petty tradesman at the best,<br />Selling retail the work of other men.”

“The everlasting and paternal wisdom saith, "Whoso heareth Me is not ashamed." If he is ashamed of anything he is ashamed of being ashamed. Whoso worketh in Me sineth not. Whoso confesseth Me and feareth Me, shall have eternal life. Whoso will hear the wisdom of the Father must dwell deep, and abide at home, and be at unity with himself.”

“The native is to be treated as a child and denied franchise. We must adopt a system of despotism, such as works in India, in our relations with the barbarism of South Africa.”

“..the works of Mozart. They create a welcome pause amidst the storms of our inner life, a vision of consolation and hope, but we hear them like sounds of another, vanished and essential unfamiliar age. Clashing discords, loss of equilibrium..”

“In your composer Schönberg's works, you have realized what I, albeit in uncertain form, have so greatly longed for in music. The independent progress through their own destinies, the independent life of the individual voices in your compositions, is exactly what I am trying to find in my painting.”

“We have a lot of work to do. We have 90% of PC [market] share and 14% of total device share. We get that,”

“The grammar of Panini is one of the most remarkable literary works that the world has ever seen, and no other country can produce any grammatical system at all comparable to it, either for originality of plan or analytical subtlety.”