Source: posthumous, Movements in art since 1945, p. 31: (in Gorky Memorial Exhibition, Schwabacher pp. 28)
Source: 1969 - 1980, In: "Ellsworth Kelly: Works on Paper," 1987, p. unknown : 'Notes from 1969'
Quote in: 'Hans Hofmann', Elizabeth Pollet, (interview of his 1957 Whitney Museum exhibition), Arts Magazine, May 1957 (article: 30-33)
1950s
“Long I lived checked by the bars of a cage;
Now I have turned again to Nature and Freedom.”
"Returning to the Fields"
Arthur Waley, Translations from the Chinese (1941), p. 90
Variant translation:
Young I was witless in the world's affairs,
My nature wildness and hills prefers;
By mishap fallen into mundane snares,
Once I had left I wasted thirty years.
Birds in the cage long for their wonted woods,
Fish in the pool for former rivers yearn.
I clear the wildness that stretches south,
Hiding my defects homeward I return.
Ten acres built with scattered house square,
Beside the thatched huts eight or nine in all;
The elms and willows shade the hindmost eaves,
While peach and pear-trees spread before the hall.
While smoke form nearby huts hangs in the breeze;
A dog is barking in the alley deep;
A cock crows from the chump of mulberry trees.
Within my courtyard all is clear of dust,
Where tranquil in my leisure I remain.
Long have I been imprisoned in the cage;
Now back to Nature I return again.
"Returning to my Farm Young" (translation by Andrew Boyd)
Context: When I was young, I was out of tune with the herd,
[[File:Chen Hongshou Portrait von Tao-Qian. JPG|thumb|Long I lived checked by the bars of a cage;
Now I have turned again to Nature and Freedom. ]] My only love was for the hills and mountains.
Unwitting I fell into the Web of World's dust,
And was not free until my thirtieth year.
The migrant bird longs for the old wood;
The fish in the tank thinks of its native pool.
I had rescued from wildness a patch of the Southern Moor
And, still rustic, I returned to field and garden.
My ground covers no more than ten acres;
My thatched cottage has eight or nine rooms.
Elms and willows cluster by the eaves;
Peach trees and plum trees grow before the Hall.
Hazy, hazy the distant hamlets of men;
Steady the smoke that hangs over cottage roofs.
A dog barks somewhere in the deep lanes,
A cock crows at the top of the mulberry tree.
At gate and courtyard—no murmur of the World's dust;
In the empty rooms—leisure and deep stillness.
Long I lived checked by the bars of a cage;
Now I have turned again to Nature and Freedom.
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 210.
As quoted in "Pressure builds for change" https://web.archive.org/web/201204251111/http://www.global-briefing.org/2012/04/pressure-builds-for-change/ (April 2012), by Benon Herbert Oluka, Global: The International Briefing
2010s
“I am sick of atrocities, though these are now the natural order of our world.”
Source: Detective Story (2008), p. 37.
Context: I am sick of atrocities, though these are now the natural order of our world. And I would still like to act!
from his article: 'The new style in painting', in the Dutch journal 'De Avondpost', 2 May 1916
this quote of Van Doesburg is announcing more or less De Stijl movement as a general modern art style
1912 – 1919
“Given this optimistic nature, I feel this way even now when I am past sixty.”
Source: Adventures of a Mathematician - Third Edition (1991), Chapter 10, Back At Los Alamos, p. 208
Context: I was still very hopeful that much work lay ahead of me. Perhaps because much of what I had worked on or thought about had not yet been put into writing, I felt I still had things in reserve. Given this optimistic nature, I feel this way even now when I am past sixty.
“I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it.”
Free Inquiry (Spring 1982) <!-- p. 9 -->
General sources
Context: I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.
