Echoes

Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart and write.

Inspiration is a guest that does not always answer the first invitation. Meanwhile we must work, and a self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood. If we wait for the mood, without endeavouring to meet it halfway, we easily become indolent and apathetic. We must be patient, and believe that inspiration will come to those who can master their despondency.

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they've had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people... Unfortunately, that's too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven't had very diverse experiences. So they don't have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one's understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.

Bold ideas, unjustified anticipations, and speculative thought, are our only means for interpreting nature: our only organon, our only instrument, for grasping her.

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.

Your whole duty as a writer is to please and satisfy yourself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one. Start sniffing the air, or glancing at the Trend Machine, and you are as good as dead, although you may make a nice living.

We do not belong to those who have ideas only among books, when stimulated by books. It is our habit to think outdoors — walking, leaping, climbing, dancing.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

These sudden inspirations never happen except after some days of voluntary effort which has appeared absolutely fruitless. The role of this unconscious work in mathematical invention appears to me incontestable. Rest gives back to the mind its force and freshness.

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.

You will hear every day the maxims of a low prudence. You will hear, that the first duty is to get land and money, place and name. "What is this Truth you seek? What is this Beauty?" men will ask, with derision. If, nevertheless, God have called any of you to explore truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be true. When you shall say, "As others do, so will I. I renounce, I am sorry for it, my early visions; I must eat the good of the land, and let learning and romantic expectations go, until a more convenient season." — then dies the man in you; then once more perish the buds of art, and poetry, and science, as they have died already in a thousand thousand men. The hour of that choice is the crisis of your history; and see that you hold yourself fast by the intellect. ... Bend to the persuasion which is flowing to you from every object in Nature, to be its tongue to the heart of man, and to show the besotted world how passing fair is wisdom.

Life is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decision difficult.

A person who is said to be proficient at the arts is like a fool. Because of his foolishness in concerning himself with just one thing, he thinks of nothing else and thus becomes proficient.

Methinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.

It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.

The aesthetic quality of a product is an integral aspect of its usefulness. But a thing can only be beautiful if it is also well made.

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

After the dazzle of day is gone, only the dark, dark night shows to my eyes the stars; after the plain of the surface and the breakers have gone, the depths of the ocean show beautiful forms.

My abilities have not been outstanding, but I have had sufficient strength and determination to meet my challenges and have usually managed to succeed with them.

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man.

Don't do anything that someone else can do. Don't undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible.

When I hear fine music I am afraid I do not enough attend to it. I cannot help stopping and filling my mind with the sweetness of the sounds.

Character is higher than intellect...A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think.