“Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing--and keeping the unknown always beyond you.”

Quote in a letter to Sherwood Anderson, October 1923; as quoted in Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life, Roxana Robinson, University Press of New England, 1999
1917 - 1929
Context: I have been thinking of what you say about form... I feel that a real living form is the natural result of the individual’s effort to create the living thing out of the adventure of his spirit into the unknown.... and from that experience comes the desire to make the unknown known. By unknown I mean the thing that means so much to the person that he want to put it down - clarify something he feels but does not clearly understand... Making the unknown known.... if you stop to think of form as form you are lost.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing--and…" by Georgia O'Keeffe?
Georgia O'Keeffe photo
Georgia O'Keeffe 59
American artist 1887–1986

Related quotes

Jim Morrison photo

“There are things known
and there are things unknown
and in between are the doors.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

Aldous Huxley, using the term "the doors of perception" which originated with William Blake in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. It is sometimes credited to Morrison because he cited it in interviews as the inspiration for the name The Doors and without always crediting Huxley as the source.
Misattributed
Variant: There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.
Source: Letters from Joe

Georgia O'Keeffe photo
William Blake photo
Aldous Huxley photo

“There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Aldous Huxley, using the term "the doors of perception" which originated with William Blake in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. It is sometimes credited to Morrison because he cited it in interviews as the inspiration for the name The Doors and without always crediting Huxley as the source.
Misattributed

Kathy Freston photo
Marianne Moore photo

“Some speak of things we know, as new;
And you, of things unknown as things forgot.”

Marianne Moore (1887–1972) American poet and writer

"Quoting an Also Private Thought" (this poem is a very slight reworking of an earlier poem "As Has Been Said")
The Poems of Marianne Moore (2003)

Aurelius Augustinus photo

“The inclination to seek the truth is safer than the presumption which regards unknown things as known.”

(Cambridge: 2002), Book 9, Chapter 1, p. 24
On the Trinity (417)

Alexander Pope photo
Rebecca Solnit photo

Related topics