art quotes from influential philosophers, authors and people
"Without music, life would be a mistake."
369
"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything."
645
"Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world."
699
"What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music.... And people flock around the poet and say: 'Sing again soon' - that is, 'May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful."
1068
"Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart."
15
"It is a fact that cannot be denied: the wickedness of others becomes our own wickedness because it kindles something evil in our own hearts."
60
"To live alone is the fate of all great souls."
71
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
72
"A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants."
73
"Compassion is the basis of morality."
74
"Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude."
75
"With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy."
76
"Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection."
77
"There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome; to be got over."
78
"Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other."
79
"We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people."
80
"Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right."
81
"Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the center of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest."
82
"A man's face as a rule says more, and more interesting things, than his mouth, for it is a compendium of everything his mouth will ever say, in that it is the monogram of all this man's thoughts and aspirations."
83
"Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors."
84
"Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability."
85
"Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else's head instead of with one's own."
86
"Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point."
87
"The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him."
88
"The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom."
89
"Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people."
90
"Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies."
91
"A man can be himself only so long as he is alone, and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom, for it is only when he is alone that he is really free."
92
"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see."
93
"Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death."
94
"Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life."
95
"Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents."
96
"Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour."
97
"As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself."
98
"Anything that is alive is in a continual state of change and movement. The moment that you rest, thinking that you have attained the level you desire, a part of your mind enters a phase of decay."
128
"Our heart glows, and secret unrest gnaws at the root of our being. Dealing with the unconscious has become a question of life for us."
166
"It's very difficult to regulate yourself, and if you learn to do that, well, it starts to spill over."
170
"If anything is worth doing, do it with all your heart."
171
"Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame."
180
"Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see."
181
"If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it."
182
"Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them."
183
"Are humans just squishy machines? Could cells be programmed like computers? Could computers be redesigned from biological parts?"
223
"Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand."
246
"First, solve the problem. Then, write the code."
247
"Start with something simple and small, then expand over time. If people call it a ‘toy’ you’re definitely onto something."
256
"The art of debugging is figuring out what you really told your program to do rather than what you thought you told it to do."
263
"There is no such thing as a best solution, be it a tool, a language, or an operating system. There can only be systems that are more appropriate in a particular set of circumstances."
268
"One broken window — a badly designed piece of code, a poor management decision that the team must live with for the duration of the project — is all it takes to start the decline. If you find yourself working on a project with quite a few broken windows, it’s all too easy to slip into the mindset of ‘All the rest of this code is crap, I’ll just follow suit.’"
270
"The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race….It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete, and would be superseded."
279
"The pace of progress in artificial intelligence (I’m not referring to narrow AI) is incredibly fast. Unless you have direct exposure to groups like Deepmind, you have no idea how fast—it is growing at a pace close to exponential. The risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five-year time frame. 10 years at most."
280
"Artificial intelligence will reach human levels by around 2029. Follow that out further to, say, 2045, we will have multiplied the intelligence, the human biological machine intelligence of our civilization a billion-fold."
282
"Nobody phrases it this way, but I think that artificial intelligence is almost a humanities discipline. It’s really an attempt to understand human intelligence and human cognition."
283
"If you ever start taking things too seriously, just remember that we are talking monkeys on an organic spaceship flying through the universe."
290
"By far the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it."
295
"In this era of fake news and paid news artificial intelligence is more and more used as a political tool to manipulate and dictate common people, through big data, biometric data, and AI analysis of online profiles and behaviors in social media and smart phones. But the days are not far when AI will also control the politicians and the media too."
296
"In the long term, artificial intelligence and automation are going to be taking over so much of what gives humans a feeling of purpose."
299
"We are entering a new world. The technologies of machine learning, speech recognition, and natural language understanding are reaching a nexus of capability. The end result is that we’ll soon have artificially intelligent assistants to help us in every aspect of our lives."
300
"Anything that could give rise to smarter-than-human intelligence—in the form of Artificial Intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, or neuroscience-based human intelligence enhancement – wins hands down beyond contest as doing the most to change the world. Nothing else is even in the same league."
301
"The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day."
309
"The best and only thing that one artist can do for another is to serve as an example and an inspiration."
312
"Attention Deficit Disorder, Seasonal Affect Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder. These aren't diseases, they're marketing ploys. Doctors didn't discover them, copywriters did. Marketing departments did. Drug companies did. Depression and anxiety may be real. But they can also be Resistance."
313
"Doctors estimate that seventy to eighty percent of their business is non-health-related. People aren't sick, they're self-dramatizing. Sometimes the hardest part of a medical job is keeping a straight face. As Jerry Seinfeld observed of his twenty years of dating: 'That's a lot of acting fascinated.'"
315
"The acquisition of a condition lends significance to one's existence. An illness, a cross to bear. Some people go from condition to condition; they cure one, and another pops up to take its place. The condition becomes a work of art in itself, a shadow version of the real creative act the victim is avoiding by expending so much care cultivating his condition."
316
"What does Resistance feel like? First, unhappiness. We're bored, we're restless. We can't get no satisfaction. There's guilt but we can't put our finger on the source. We want to go back to bed; we want to get up and party. We feel unloved and unlovable. We're disgusted. We hate our lives. We hate ourselves."
319
"As artists and professionals it is our obligation to enact our own internal revolution, a private insurrection inside our own skulls. In this uprising we free ourselves from the tyranny of consumer culture. We overthrow the programming of advertising, movies, video games, magazines, TV, and MTV by which we have been hypnotized from the cradle."
320
"The more Resistance you experience, the more important your unmanifested art/project/enterprise is to you - and the more gratification you will feel when you finally do it."
326
"An amateur lets the negative opinion of others unman him. He takes external criticism to heart, allowing it to trump his own belief in himself and his work."
329
"The unvarnished truth is that almost all the people you meet feel themselves superior to you in some way, and a sure way to their hearts is to let them realize in some subtle way that you recognize their importance, and recognize it sincerely."
331
"Avoid making 'clever' designs. Clever designs are usually hard to understand. Instead make 'simple' and 'easy-to-understand' designs. If your design doesn't let you safely ignore most others parts of the program when you're immersed in one specific part, the design isn't doing its job."
335
"Happiness was not the direct object of a Stoic's life. There is no rule of life contained in the precept that a man should pursue his own happiness. Many men think that they are seeking happiness when they are only seeking the gratification of some particular passion, the strongest that they have."
347
"In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."
379
"The singularity represents the point of no return, when artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence and becomes capable of self-improvement."
391
"The more a man has in himself, the less he will want from other people."
395
"Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions."
396
"It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else."
397
"Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think."
398
"Water is the softest thing, yet it can penetrate mountains and earth. This shows clearly the principle of softness overcoming hardness."
509
"Make your heart like a lake with a calm still surface and great depths of kindness."
518
"A civilization which leaves so large a number of its participants unsatisfied and drives them into revolt neither has nor deserves the prospect of a lasting existence."
552
"A large part of what is real within us is not comprehended; and that which is comprehended is not real."
558
"The whole is more than the sum of its parts."
595
"Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all."
600
"One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."
630
"The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life."
632
"The beginning is the most important part of the work."
639
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact."
654
"Starting and growing a business is as much about the innovation, drive and determination of the people who do it as it is about the product they sell."
656
"I could either watch it happen or be a part of it."
679
"In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another."
705
"Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste."
719
"Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men."
746
"Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes."
769
"Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it."
777
"It is a grand thing to rise in the world. The ambition to do so is the very salt of the earth. It is the parent of all enterprise, and the cause of all improvement."
778
"The man who starts out simply with the idea of getting rich won’t succeed, you must have a larger ambition."
782
"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities."
879
"I think; therefore I am."
905
"The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of past centuries."
906
"If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things."
907
"I suppose therefore that all things I see are illusions; I believe that nothing has ever existed of everything my lying memory tells me. I think I have no senses. I believe that body, shape, extension, motion, location are functions. What is there then that can be taken as true? Perhaps only this one thing, that nothing at all is certain."
908
"Conquer yourself rather than the world."
909
"Doubt is the origin of wisdom."
910
"Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it."
911
"Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power."
912
"It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well."
913
"To know what people really think, pay attention to what they do, rather than what they say."
914
"And thus, the actions of life often not allowing any delay, it is a truth very certain that, when it is not in our power to determine the most true opinions we ought to follow the most probable."
915
"The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues."
916
"I desire to live in peace and to continue the life I have begun under the motto 'to live well you must live unseen."
917
"It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived."
918
"You just keep pushing. You just keep pushing. I made every mistake that could be made. But I just kept pushing."
919
"To live without philosophizing is in truth the same as keeping the eyes closed without attempting to open them."
920
"There is nothing more ancient than the truth."
921
"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
922
"In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn than to contemplate."
923
"For I found myself embarrassed with so many doubts and errors that it seemed to me that the effort to instruct myself had no effect other than the increasing discovery of my own ignorance."
924
"He who hid well, lived well."
925
"Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems."
926
"At last I will devote myself sincerely and without reservation to the general demolition of my opinions."
927
"Let whoever can do so deceive me, he will never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I continue to think I am something."
928
"...it is a mark of prudence never to place our complete trust in those who have deceived us even once."
929
"Because reason...is the only thing that makes us men, and distinguishes us from the beasts, I would prefer to believe that it exists, in its entirety, in each of us..."
930
"The reading of all good books is indeed like a conversation with the noblest men of past centuries who were the authors of them, nay a carefully studied conversation, in which they reveal to us none but the best of their thoughts."
931
"Some years ago I was struck by the large number of falsehoods that I had accepted as true in my childhood, and by the highly doubtful nature of the whole edifice that I had subsequently based on them. I realized that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations if I wanted to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last."
932
"Good sense is the most equitably distributed of all things because no matter how much or little a person has, everyone feels so abundantly provided with good sense that he feels no desire for more than he already possesses."
933
"But I cannot forget that, at other times I have been deceived in sleep by similar illusions; and, attentively considering those cases, I perceive so clearly that there exist no certain marks by which the state of waking can ever be distinguished from sleep, that I feel greatly astonished; and in amazement I almost persuade myself that I am now dreaming."
934
"So blind is the curiosity by which mortals are possessed, that they often conduct their minds along unexplored routes, having no reason to hope for success, but merely being willing to risk the experiment of finding whether the truth they seek lies there."
935
"I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am."
936
"It is best not to go on for great quest for truth , it will only make you miserable."
937
"But what then am I? A thing that thinks. What is that? A thing that doubts, understand, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, and that also imagines and senses."
938
"Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true and assured I have gotten either from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once."
939
"To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues."
948
"The great question which, in all ages, has disturbed mankind, and brought on them the greatest part of their mischiefs ... has been, not whether be power in the world, nor whence it came, but who should have it."
954
"He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals."
966
"For peace to reign on Earth, humans must evolve into new beings who have learned to see the whole first."
975
"All false art, all vain wisdom, lasts its time but finally destroys itself, and its highest culture is also the epoch of its decay."
994
"I know the feelings of my heart, and I know men. I am not made like any of those I have seen; I venture to believe that I am not made like any of those who are in existence. If I am not better, at least I am different. Whether Nature has acted rightly or wrongly in destroying the mould in which she cast me, can only be decided after I have been read."
1000
"Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?"
1004
"I have never thought, for my part, that man's freedom consists in his being able to do whatever he wills, but that he should not, by any human power, be forced to do what is against his will."
1012
"Trust your heart rather than your head."
1015
"It is as if my heart and my brain did not belong to the same person. Feelings come quicker than lightning and fill my soul, but they bring me no illumination; they burn me and dazzle me."
1019
"Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken."
1031
"The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
1033
"The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you'll never have."
1066
"Of all creatures that breathe and move upon the earth, nothing is bred that is weaker than man."
1082
"Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another."
1084
"Be strong, saith my heart; I am a soldier; I have seen worse sights than this."
1088
"For a friend with an understanding heart is worth no less than a brother."
1090
"Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men. Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth, now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round again. And so with men: as one generation comes to life, another dies away."
1091
"There is nothing alive more agonized than man / of all that breathe and crawl across the earth."
1102
"Be still my heart; thou hast known worse than this."
1103
"Why have you come to me here, dear heart, with all these instructions? I promise you I will do everything just as you ask. But come closer. Let us give in to grief, however briefly, in each other's arms."
1104
"If you’re stuck on a problem, don’t sit there and think about it; just start working on it. Even if you don’t know what you’re doing, the simple act of working on it will eventually cause the right ideas to show up in your head."
1169
"It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong."
1180
"I’m smart enough to know that I’m dumb."
1189
"If you thought that science was certain – well, that is just an error on your part."
1193
"The most remarkable discovery in all of astronomy is that the stars are made of atoms of the same kind as those on the earth."
1195