Art and Existence

An entertainment is something which distracts us or diverts us from the routine of daily life. It makes us for the time being forget our cares and worries; it interrupts our conscious thoughts and habits, rests our nerves and minds, though it may incidentally exhaust our bodies. Art, on the other hand, though it may divert us from the normal routine of our existence, causes us in some way or other to become conscious of that existence. - Sir Herbert Read, British critic and poet in To Hell with Culture, ch. 13 (1963).

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The effort of art is to keep what is interesting in existence, to recreate it in the eternal. - George Santayana (1863-1952), U.S. philosopher and poet in Reason in Art, ch. 8, The Life of Reason (1905-1906, rev. edition 1953)

Possibilities

If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoicating as possibility?

        - Soren Kierkegaard, the famous Danish philosopher wrote in his book Either/Or:

Open your eyes

The great teachings unanimously emphasize that all the peace, wisdom, and joy in the universe are already within us; we don't have to gain, develop, or attain them. We're like a child standing in a beautiful park with his eyes shut tight. We don't need to imagine trees, flowers, deer, birds, and sky; we merely need to open our eyes and realize what is already here, who we really are --Anon

Henry Ford

"You can't build up a reputation on what you are going to do." - Henry Ford

  

T. E. Lawrence

  “All men dream; but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out otheir dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.” - T. E. Lawrence

Sigmund Freud

 It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestations of their aggression. - Sigmund Freud

Albert Camus

"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life." -- Albert Camus

Three more quotes from Camus:

"Where there is no hope, it is incumbent on us to invent it."

"Always go too far, because that's where you'll find the truth"

"The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth."

T. S. Eliot

“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” - T. S. Eliot