“I work a lot but don't seem to finish. That is, I hope what I am doing means something because I don't know what I am doing. It's strange and terrible but I feel calm. Today I worked non-stop for six hours on a sculpture and I don't know what the result is... Planes upon planes, sections of muscles, of a face and then? And the total effect? Does what I create live? Where will I end up?”

— Umberto Boccioni

Boccioni's quote, from an undated letter to Gino Severini (probably July or August 1912, or November); as quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008.
1912

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Aug. 23, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I work a lot but don't seem to finish. That is, I hope what I am doing means something because I don't know what I am d…" by Umberto Boccioni?

Umberto Boccioni41

Italian painter and sculptor 1882–1916

Related quotes

“I don't know what I feel or what I want to feel. I don't know what to think or what I am.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

“Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing.”

Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) German, later an American, aerospace engineer and space architect

In an interview in the New York Times (16 December 1957), cited in a footnote on page 32 of "Work, Society, and Culture" by Yves Reni Marie Simon, and also in a footnote (in German) on page 360 of "Vita activa oder Vom taetigen Leben" by Hannah Arend (1981)

Variants:

Basic research is when I'm doing what I don't know I'm doing.

Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.

Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing.

“The commitment I have made is terrible and the plastic means appear and disappear at the moment of implementation. It's terrible... And the chaos of will? What law? It’s terrible... Then I struggle with sculpture: I work, work and work and I don't know what I give. Is it interior? Is it exterior? Is it sensation? Is it delirium? Is it brain? Analysis? Synthesis? I don't know what the f… it is! Forms on forms.. confusion... The Cubists are wrong. Picasso is wrong. The academics are wrong. We're all a bunch of d.. heads.”

Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916) Italian painter and sculptor

1912
Source: an 2nd undated letter to Gino Severini (probably July or August 1912, or November); as quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008.

“Sometimes I think I don't know what I'm doing
but I always end up doing what I know.
And what I know may not, I know, be a great deal
but what I know nobody can take,
nobody can take, nobody can take away from me,
no, no, no. Away from me, no, no, no.
I do what I know. Doing what I know.
Sometimes I think I don't know what I'm doing
but I always end up doing what I know.
Away we go, doing what I know.”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"Doing What I Know" (song) <br class="br">Song lyrics <br class="br">Source: Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Doing What I Know" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlkC9AFrSNU (song on YouTube)