“Before I start carving the idea must be almost complete. I say 'almost' because the really important thing seems to be the sculptor's ability to let his intuition guide him over the gap between conception and realization without compromising the integrity of the original idea; the point being that the material has vitality – it resists and makes demands..”

— Barbara Hepworth

Source: 1932 - 1946, The Studio 132:643', (1946), p. 279

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Barbara Hepworth 40

English sculptor 1903–1975

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“The sculptor carves because he must. He needs the concrete form of stone and wood for the expression of his idea and experience, and when the idea forms the material is found at once. …. I have always preferred direct carving to modelling because I like the resistance of the hard material and feel happier working that way. Carving is more adapted to the expression of the accumulative idea of experience and clay to the visual attitude. An idea for carving must be clearly formed before starting and sustained during the long process of working; also, there are all the beauties of several hundreds of different stones and woods, and the idea must be in harmony with the qualities of each one carved; that harmony comes with the discovery of the most direct way of carving each material according to its nature.”

Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975) English sculptor

quote from an extract of 'Barbara Hepworth – the Sculptor carves because he must, The Studio, London, vol. 104, December 1932, p. 332
1932 - 1946

“Professional opinion is almost inevitably against changes. It has been the operation of these and similar influences which has brought about, as I fear, a return to the old conception of what is called power diplomacy. To these conceptions, it is not too much to say, the idea of the complete opposition of war and peace was really foreign.”

Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood (1864–1958) lawyer, politician and diplomat in the United Kingdom

The Future of Civilization (1938)

“I happen to believe that most of the important things in the material world start out as fiction. That everything around us was once fiction – before there was the table there was the idea of a table, and the idea of a table before tables was fiction. This is the most important world, the world of fictional things. That’s the world where all this starts.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

De Abaitua interview (1998)
Context: A god is the idea of a god. The idea of a god is a god. The idea of Glycon is Glycon, if I can enhance that idea with an anaconda and a speaking tube, fair enough. I am unlikely to start believing that this glove puppet created the universe. It’s a fiction, all gods are fiction. It’s just that I happen to think that fiction’s real. Or that it has its own reality, that is just as valid as ours. I happen to believe that most of the important things in the material world start out as fiction. That everything around us was once fiction – before there was the table there was the idea of a table, and the idea of a table before tables was fiction. This is the most important world, the world of fictional things. That’s the world where all this starts.

“From my point of view, a completely covered woman has almost no chance of integrating herself in Germany.”

Angela Merkel (1954) Chancellor of Germany

Speaking on the Radio Station Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland, as quoted in "Angela Merkel says burqa incompatible with integration in society for Muslim women" http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/angela-merkel-says-burqa-incompatible-integration-society-muslim-women-1576944 by Callum Paton, International Business Times (19 August 2016).
2016

“No, I think Abstract art is valuable. It teaches people the language of painting. In my own work I have produced carvings which perhaps might see to most people purely abstract. This means that in those works I have been mainly concerned to try to solve problems of design and composition. But these carvings have not really satisfied me because I have not had the same sort of grip or hold over them that I have as soon as a thing takes on a kind of organic idea. And in almost all my carvings there has been an organic idea in my mind. I think of it as having a head, body, limbs..”

Henry Moore (1898–1986) English artist

Quote in 'The Listener', 13 November 1941, pp. 657-9; as cited in Henry Moore writings and Conversations, ed. Alan Wilkinson, University of California Press, California 2002, p. 126
1940 - 1955

“This miracle of analysis, this marvel of the world of ideas, an almost amphibian object between Being and Non-being that we call the imaginary number.”

Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) German mathematician and philosopher

Ce miracle de l'Analyse, prodige du monde des idées, objet presque amphibie entre l'Être et le Non-être, que nous appelons racine imaginaire.
Quoted in Singularités : individus et relations dans le système de Leibniz (2003) by Christiane Frémont

“[I have] various tricks to actually reach that solitary point of creativity. One of them is pretending I have an idea. But that trick doesn't survive very long because I don't really trust ideas – especially good ones... Rather, I put my trust in the materials that confront me, because they put me in touch with the unknown. It is then that I begin to work.... when I don't have the comfort of sureness and certainty. Sometimes Jack Daniels helps too. Another good trick is fatigue. I like to start working when it's almost too late.... when my sense of efficiency is exhausted.”

Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) American artist

Quote from 'Robert Rauschenberg: An Audience of One', John Gruen, Art News, 29, February 1977, p. 48
1970's

“One important point about the idea that there are multiple globalizations is the fact that it further complicates the whole idea of finding a point of origin for globalization.”

George Ritzer (1940) American sociologist

Source: Globalization - A Basic Text (2010), Chapter 2, Global Issues, Debates, and Controversies, p. 47

“Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea.”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

“The moment always comes when, having collected one's ideas, certain images, an intuition of a certain kind of development — whether psychological or material — one must pass on to the actual realization.”

Michelangelo Antonioni (1912–2007) Italian film director and screenwriter

Cahiers du Cinema (1960)
Context: The moment always comes when, having collected one's ideas, certain images, an intuition of a certain kind of development — whether psychological or material — one must pass on to the actual realization. In the cinema, as in the other arts, this is the most delicate moment — the moment when the poet or writer makes his first mark on the page, the painter on his canvas, when the director arranges his characters in their setting, makes them speak and move, establishes, through the compositions of his various images, a reciprocal relationship between persons and things, between rhythm of the dialogue and that of the whole sequence, makes the movement of the camera fit in with the psychological situation. But the most crucial moment of all comes when the director gathers from all the people and from everything around him every possible suggestion, in order that his work may acquire a more spontaneous cast, may become more personal and, we might even say — in the broadest sense — more autobiographical.

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Barbara Hepworth 40

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