“We know only what we do, what we make, what we construct; and all that we make, all that we construct, are realities. I call them images, not in Plato's sense (namely that they are only reflections of reality), but I hold that these images are the reality itself and that there is no reality beyond this reality except when in our creative process we change the images: then we have created new realities.”

—  Naum Gabo

Quote of Naum Gabo, 1950; as cited in: Eidos: a journal of painting, sculpture and design. Nr.1, p. 31
1936 - 1977

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We know only what we do, what we make, what we construct; and all that we make, all that we construct, are realities. I…" by Naum Gabo?
Naum Gabo photo
Naum Gabo 23
Russian sculptor 1890–1977

Related quotes

Farley Mowat photo

“We have doomed the wolf not for what it is, but for what we deliberately and mistakenly perceive it to be –the mythologized epitome of a savage ruthless killer – which is, in reality, no more than a reflected image of ourself.”

Farley Mowat book Never Cry Wolf

Source: Never Cry Wolf

George MacDonald photo

“Why are all reflections lovelier than what we call the reality?”

George MacDonald book Phantastes

not so grand or so strong, it may be, but always lovelier?
Phantastes (1858)

Ilya Prigogine photo

“Whatever we call reality, it is revealed to us only through the active construction in which we participate.”

Ilya Prigogine (1917–2003) physical chemist

Source: Order Out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature (1984), p. 293.

Francisco Varela photo

“If everybody would agree that their current reality is a reality, and that what we essentially share is our capacity for constructing a reality, then perhaps we could all agree on a meta-agreement for computing a reality that would mean survival and dignity for everyone on the planet, rather than each group being sold on a particular way of doing things.”

Francisco Varela (1946–2001) Chilean biologist

Varela (1975) in: Anne Waldman eds. (1975) The Coevolution quarterly. Nr. 8-12, p. 31

“Reality is what we want it to be or what we do not want it to be, but it is not our wanting or our not wanting that makes it so.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“Malraux and the Statues at Bamberg”, p. 191
A Sad Heart at the Supermarket: Essays & Fables (1962)

Jane Roberts photo

“Yet the fact remains that there is a dream reality with a "structure," "landscape" and images that appear to be made of matter -- but matter that obeys different rules than those with which we are familiar. Dreams are not just psychological events. There is a dimension of reality (an "objective" dimension, if you prefer), in which all dream events happen. There are rules: Seth calls them root-assumptions that operate in all realities, our own included. We have to learn what root-assumptions govern dream reality.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Seth, Dreams & Projections of Consciousness, (1986), p. 195

Michelangelo Antonioni photo

“We know that under the image revealed there is another which is truer to reality and under this image still another and yet again still another under this last one, right down to the true image of that reality, absolute, mysterious, which no one will ever see or perhaps right down to the decomposition of any image, of any reality.”

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

As quoted by the interviewer from the introduction to an Italian publlication of Antonioni's screenplays.
Encountering Directors interview (1969)

Gerhard Richter photo

“When we describe a process, or make out an invoice, or photograph a tree, we create models; without them we would know nothing of reality and would be animals. Abstract pictures are fictive models, because they make visible a reality that we can neither see nor describe, but whose existence we can postulate.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

in text for catalogue of documenta 7, Kassel, 1982; as cited on collected quotes on the website of Gerhard Richter: on 'Abstract paintings' https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/quotes/subjects-2/abstract-paintings-7
1980's

Terence McKenna photo

“What needs to be done is that fundamental, ontological conceptions of reality need to be redone. We need a new language, and to have a new language we must have a new reality…”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

Psychedelic Society (1984)
Context: Our ability to destroy ourselves is the mirror image of our ability to save ourselves, and what is lacking is the clear vision of what should be done... What needs to be done is that fundamental, ontological conceptions of reality need to be redone. We need a new language, and to have a new language we must have a new reality... A new reality will generate a new language, a new language will fix a new reality, and make it part of this reality.

Related topics