"The Defence Remains Open!" (April 1921), published in Collected Essays, Volume 5: Philosophy edited by S. T. Joshi, p. 53
Non-Fiction
Context: The opinions of the masses are of no interest to me, for praise can truly gratify only when it comes from a mind sharing the author's perspective. There are probably seven persons, in all, who really like my work; and they are enough. I should write even if I were the only patient reader, for my aim is merely self-expression. I could not write about "ordinary people" because I am not in the least interested in them. Without interest there can be no art. Man's relations to man do not captivate my fancy. It is man's relation to the cosmos—to the unknown—which alone arouses in me the spark of creative imagination. The humanocentric pose is impossible to me, for I cannot acquire the primitive myopia which magnifies the earth and ignores the background. Pleasure to me is wonder—the unexplored, the unexpected, the thing that is hidden and the changeless thing that lurks behind superficial mutability. To trace the remote in the immediate; the eternal in the ephemeral; the past in the present; the infinite in the finite; these are to me the springs of delight and beauty. Like the late Mr. Wilde, "I live in terror of not being misunderstood."
“Without electricity, there can be no art.”
Nam June Paik (1932–2006) American video art pioneer
Nam June Paik, (c. 1976) in "Nam June Paik retrospective, Liverpool" by Emma O'Kelly in Wallpaper, 20 December 2010 (at archive.org https://web.archive.org/web/20101222082827/http://www.wallpaper.com/art/nam-june-paik-retrospective-liverpool/5045). <br class="br">1970s
“Art can never exist without Naked Beauty displayed.”
William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist
The Laocoön
1800s
Fernand Léger (1881–1955) French painter
Fernand Léger - The Later Years, catalogue ed. Nicolas Serota, published by the Trustees of the Whitechapel Art gallery, London, Prestel Verlag, 1988, p. 12
Quotes of Fernand Leger, 1980's
“Knowing whether or not one can live without appeal is all that interests me.”
Albert Camus book The Myth of Sisyphus
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), An Absurd Reasoning
Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor
Lawrence Weiner (1942) American artist
" Art Dictionary: Lawrence Weiner, A Sculptor of Language http://www.hatjecantz.de/lawrence-weiner-5098-1.html," at hatjecantz.de. 2012.
“Logic is the most useful tool of all the arts. Without it no science can be fully known.”
William of Ockham book Sum of Logic
Summa Logicae (c. 1323), Prefatory Letter, as translated by Paul Vincent Spade (1995) http://www.pvspade.com/Logic/docs/ockham.pdf <br class="br">Context: Logic is the most useful tool of all the arts. Without it no science can be fully known. It is not worn out by repeated use, after the manner of material tools, but rather admits of continual growth through the diligent exercise of any other science. For just as a mechanic who lacks a complete knowledge of his tool gains a fuller [knowledge] by using it, so one who is educated in the firm principles of logic, while he painstakingly devotes his labor to the other sciences, acquires at the same time a greater skill at this art.
“Society is basically not interested in art. Art has a purpose of its own.”
Donald Judd (1928–1994) artist
Chinati: Judd’s Concretes Re-open http://adobeairstream.com/art/chinati-judds-concretes-re-open, AdobeAirstream.com, 9 October 2009 <br class="br">Attributed from posthumous publications
U.G. Krishnamurti (1918–2007) Indian philosopher
Source: No Way Out (2002), Ch. 2: Nothing To Be Transformed
Context: Whether you are interested in moksha, liberation, freedom, transformation, you name it, you are interested in happiness without one moment of unhappiness, pleasure without pain, it is the same thing. Whether one is here in India or Russia or in America or anywhere, what people want is to have one without the other. But there is no way you can have one without the other. This demand is not in the interest of the survival of this living organism.
