“Art is the magic mirror you make to reflect your invisible dreams in visible pictures. You use a glass mirror to see your face: you use works of art to see your soul.”

— George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah

The She-Ancient, in Pt. V
Source: 1920s, Back to Methuselah (1921)
Context: Art is the magic mirror you make to reflect your invisible dreams in visible pictures. You use a glass mirror to see your face: you use works of art to see your soul. But we who are older use neither glass mirrors nor works of art. We have a direct sense of life. When you gain that you will put aside your mirrors and statues, your toys and your dolls.

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 "Art is the magic mirror you make to reflect your invisible dreams in visible pictures. You use a glass mirror to see yo…" by George Bernard Shaw?

George Bernard Shaw photo

George Bernard Shaw413

Irish playwright 1856–1950

Related quotes

“When you wish to see whether the general effect of your picture corresponds with that of the object represented after nature, take a mirror and set it so that it reflects the actual thing, and then compare the reflection with your picture, and consider carefully whether the subject of the two images is in conformity with both, studying especially the mirror. The mirror ought to be taken as a guide… you see the picture made upon one plane showing things which appear in relief, and the mirror upon one plane does the same. The picture is on one single surface, and the mirror is the same. …if you but know well how to compose your picture it will also seem a natural thing seen in a great mirror.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XXIX Precepts of the Painter

“Teaching at best beckons us to morality, but it is not in itself efficacious. Teaching is like a mirror. It can show you if your face is dirty, but it the mirror will not wash your face.”

Ravi Zacharias (1946) Indian philosopher

2000s
Source: [Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message, 2002, 9780849943270, 90]

“If you want to see the love of your life, look in the mirror.”

Byron Katie (1942) American spiritual writer

Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life (2002)

“It is the obvious which is so difficult to see most of the time. People say 'It's as plain as the nose on your face.' But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you?”

Isaac Asimov book I, Robot

Source: I, Robot

“If you really want to know who I am, you have to be as absolutely empty as I am. Then two mirrors will be facing each other, and only emptiness will be mirrored. Infinite emptiness will be mirrored: two mirrors facing each other. But if you have some idea, then you will see your own idea in me.”

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

Come Follow To You, Vol. 2, Chapter 4; in Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic (2000), Part 2.

“For years I have had no mirror; I have learned to make do. The eyes of another can be a mirror more effective than water. If you will look at me, I can see my reflection in yours”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

“And it is very much lamented,…
That you have no such mirrors as will turn
Your hidden worthiness into your eye
That you might see your shadow.”

William Shakespeare Julius Caesar

Source: Julius Caesar

“I'll be your mirror
Reflect what you are
In case you don't know”

Lou Reed (1942–2013) American musician

I'll Be Your Mirror
Lyrics

“I have a feeling that you despise your body and that you only value art, you only value your argent needs, but eating and sleeping aren’t enough. You believe that your appearance is your enemy, and the only friend you have is music. Why look just in the mirror, look at your reflection, you’ll never find a better friend that yourself.”

Elfriede Jelinek book The Piano Teacher

P 65
The Piano Teacher (1988)

“You are right not to meet my glance, my lord, for then I see into your heart too clearly. It is a mirror which retains the image which it has reflected.”

Alessandro Cagliostro (1743–1795) Italian occultist

Balsamo the Magician (or The Memoirs of a Physician) by Alex. Dumas (1891)

Related topics