2000-09, Ai Weiwei: A Rebel of Poet Roots, 2008
“Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet
Elegiac Verse, st. 14 (1879).
Context: Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending;
Many a poem is marred by a superfluous verse.
“Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art.”
Will Durant book The Story of Philosophy
The Story of Philosophy (1926)
“Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician
Maxim 739, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
“The art of representing the human figure in the ancient world begins and ends with ‘frontality’.”
Arnold Hauser (1892–1978) Hungarian art historian
The Social History of Art, Volume I. From Prehistoric Times to the Middle Ages, 1999, Chapter III. Greece and Rome
H. Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British physician, writer, and social reformer
Source: The Dance of Life http://www.gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300671.txt (1923), Ch. 2
Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
speech at Lord Mayor’s Luncheon, Mansion House, London, November 10, 1942 : ( partial text http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/EndoBegn.html) <br class="br">Referring to the British victory over the German Afrika Korps at the Second Battle of El Alamein in Egypt. <br class="br">The Second World War (1939–1945) <br class="br">Variant: This is not the end, this is not even the beginning of the end, this is just perhaps the end of the beginning. <br class="br">Source: Their Finest Hour
“My end is my beginning, and my beginning my end.”
Guillaume de Machaut (1300–1377) French poet and composer
Ma fin est mon commencement
Et mon commencement ma fin.
"Ma fin est mon commencement", line 1; translation from Donald N. Ferguson A History of Musical Thought (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, [1935] 1948) p. 94.
George Müller (1805–1898) German-English clergyman
Muller is often attributed with a version of this saying, and the quote (with attribution to Muller) appears as early as 1897 in The Churchman https://books.google.com/books?id=cpdOAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA25-PA45&lpg=RA25-PA45&dq=The+beginning+of+anxiety+is+the+end+of+faith,+and+the+beginning+of+true+faith+is+the+end+of+anxiety+%2B+the+churchman&source=bl&ots=3x_wtX82mF&sig=gGHZUKxXWa5BfvRfzeY_F8zA9dM&hl=; however, no source written by Muller can be found to confirm him as having said this.
