“Whatever the practical origins of aesthetic discernment may have been, it has been used to create great works of art. When the very loftiest human creations are seen to derive from humble origins and functions, what needs revision is not our esteem for these creations but our notion of nobility.”

— Robert Nozick , book The Nature of Rationality

The Nature of Rationality (1993), Ch. V : Instrumental Rationality and Its Limits; Rationality's Imagination, p. 181

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Robert Nozick 32

American political philosopher 1938–2002

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“The science of pure mathematics, in its modern developments, may claim to be the most original creation of the human spirit.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

1920s, Science and the Modern World (1925)

“Every great work of art should be considered like any work of nature. First of all from the point of view of its aesthetic reality and then not just from its development and the mastery of its creation but from the standpoint of what has moved and agitated its creator.”

Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) Italian painter and sculptor

Attributed without citation at The Art Story http://www.theartstory.org/artist-modigliani-amedeo.htm.

“What is new in work democracy is: that for the first time in the history of sociology, a possible future regulation of human society is derived not from ideologies or conditions that must be created, but from natural processes that have been present and have been developing from the very beginning.”

Wilhelm Reich book The Mass Psychology of Fascism

Section 1 : Give Responsibility to Vitally Necessary Work!
Variant translation: What is new in work democracy is: that for the first time in the history of sociology a possible future order of human society is deduced not from ideologies or from conditions yet to be created, but from processes which are naturally given and which have always been in operation. What is new in it is the renunciation and rejection of any kind of politics and demagogy. New is that, instead of the working masses of people being relieved of social responsibility, they are being burdened with it. Further, that the work democrats have no political ambitions nor are allowed to develop any. Further, that it consciously develops formal democracy — which means merely the voting for ideological representatives without any further responsibility on the part of the voter — into genuine, factual and practical democracy on an international scale; a democracy which is borne, in progressive organic development, by the functions of love, work and knowledge.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), Ch. 10 : Work Democracy
Context: What is new in work democracy is: that for the first time in the history of sociology, a possible future regulation of human society is derived not from ideologies or conditions that must be created, but from natural processes that have been present and have been developing from the very beginning. Work-democratic "politics" is distinguished by the fact that it rejects all politics and demagogism. Masses of working men and women will not be relieved of their social responsibility. They will be burdened with it. Work-democrats have no ambition to be political führers, nor will they ever be permitted to develop such an ambition...

“You see, when we're talking about origins, we're talking about the past, we're talking about our origins. We weren't there, you can't observe that, whether it's molecules-to-man evolution or the creation account. When you're talking about the past, we like to call that origins or historical science: knowledge concerning the past. Here at the Creation Museum, we make no apology about the fact that our origins or historical science is actually based upon the biblical account of origins. When you research science text books being used in public schools, what we found is this: by and large the origins or historical science is based on man's ideas about the past, for instance the ideas of Darwin.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

"Bill Nye Debates Ken Ham" (February 4, 2014)

“An original is a creation motivated by desire.
Any reproduction of an original is motivated by necessity.”

Man Ray (1890–1976) American artist and photographer

"Originals Graphics Multiples" (1973) 
Context: An original is a creation motivated by desire.
Any reproduction of an original is motivated by necessity.
The original is the result of an automatic process, the reproduction, of a mechanical process. In other words: Inspiration then information; each validates the other.
All other considerations are beyond the scope of these statements.
It is marvelous that we are the only species that creates gratuitous forms. To create is divine, to reproduce is human.

“The word experiment derives from 'experimentum' - that which has been experienced and what, for the writer, has been experienced is the work of his great predecessors”

Vernon Scannell (1922–2007) British boxer and poet

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“When one's function is to teach the loftiest wisdom, it is difficult to resist the temptation to believe that until you have spoken, nothing has been said.”

Jacques Maritain (1882–1973) French philosopher

The Peasant of the Garonne (1968), pp. 147-148.

“Purity" of and in art — any art, including music and dance — is an illusory notion, of course. It may be remotely conceivable or imaginable, but it can't be realized because it can't be recognized any more than a "pure" human being or a "pure" (or, for that matter, gratuitous) act can be. All the same, for Western art in its Modernist phase "purity" has been a useful idea and ideal, with a kind of logic to it that has worked, and still works, to generate aesthetic value and maintain aesthetic standards as nothing else in our specializing culture has over the last hundred-odd years.But this logic has also worked to exclude the decorative — the decorative insofar as it functions solely as decoration. It's as though aesthetic value, quality, could be preserved only by concentrating on "absolute" or "autonomous" art: thus on visual art — including even architecture — that held and moved and stirred the beholder as sheer decoration could not. Decoration is asked to be "merely" pleasing, "merely" embellishing, and the "functional" logic of Modernism leaves no room, apparently, for such "mereness.”

Clement Greenberg (1909–1994) American writer and artist

This is part of the pity of Modernism, one of the sacrifices it enjoins....
"Detached Observations" http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/detached.html, Arts Magazine (December 1976)
1970s

“Organizational cultures are created by leaders, and one of the decisive functions of leadership may well be the creation, the management, and--if and when that may become necessary--the destruction of culture.”

Edgar H. Schein (1928) Psychologist

Source: Organizational Culture and Leadership, 1985, p. 2

“Human needs, although originally derived from biological necessity, are thus a result of the existence of society and are conditioned by the stage of development which society has reached.”

Oskar R. Lange (1904–1965) Polish economist

"The Subject Matter of Political Economy: Elementary Concepts"

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