“A series of powers are at work within the great stream of Expressionism who have no outward similarity to one another but a common direction of thrust, namely the intention to give expression to things of the psyche [Seelisches] through form alone.”

Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)
Context: Reason... to suppose any production, worthy to be called a work of art, can be made without its use is foolish.... By the use of reason many mistakes in design may be avoided and many counterfeits of art readily detected.... Beauty alone is an excellent reason for many things, but when a design is in direct conflict with common sense it cannot be a work of art.

Arthur Wesley Dow & American Arts & Crafts, Nancy E Green & Jessica Poesch Exhibt Cat. New York (1999)
Other

Source: After the Quake

in Die organische Bewegung in ihrem Zusammenhange mit dem Stoffwechsel, [Julius Robert von Mayer, Die Mechanik der Wärme in gesammelten Schriften, Cotta, 1867, 53-54]
Original: Die Natur hat sich die Aufgabe gestellt, das der Erde zuströmende Licht im Fluge zu erhaschen, und die beweglichste aller Kräfte, in starre Form umgewandelt, aufzuspeichern. Zur Erreichung dieses Zweckes hat sie die Erdkruste mit Organismen überzogen, welche lebend das Sonnenlicht in sich aufnehmen und unter Verwendung dieser Kraft eine fortlaufende Summe chemischer Differenzen erzeugen.

Il torre altrui la vita
È facoltà commune
Al più vil della terra; il darla è solo
De' Numi, e de' Regnanti.
La Clemenza di Tito (1734), Act III, scene 7.

Journal August 22 1916 Voices of German Expressionism ISBN 9781854374813
Other Quotes

[Swami Tapasyananda, Swami Nikhilananda, Sri Sarada Devi, the Holy Mother; Life and Conversations, 312]

I. Kandinsky's introduction
1910 - 1915, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1911