“We spent our whole lives in unconsous excercise of the art of expressing our thoughts with the help of words”

Source: The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We spent our whole lives in unconsous excercise of the art of expressing our thoughts with the help of words" by Vincent Van Gogh?
Vincent Van Gogh photo
Vincent Van Gogh 238
Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890) 1853–1890

Related quotes

Ralph Vaughan Williams photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

"Proclamation 3560 — Thanksgiving Day, 1963" (5 November 1963) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9511<!-- Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project -->
1963
Context: Today we give our thanks, most of all, for the ideals of honor and faith we inherit from our forefathers —  for the decency of purpose, steadfastness of resolve and strength of will, for the courage and the humility, which they possessed and which we must seek every day to emulate. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.
Let us therefore proclaim our gratitude to Providence for manifold blessings — let us be humbly thankful for inherited ideals — and let us resolve to share those blessings and those ideals with our fellow human beings throughout the world.

Alex Salmond photo

“Words that help describe the values for our whole democracy: justice, wisdom, integrity and compassion.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Cardinal Winning Lecture (February 2, 2008)
Context: When we consider the ideals - the values - that we should foster in Scotland's young people, we can think of the words inscribed on the mace of the Scottish Parliament. Words that help describe the values for our whole democracy: justice, wisdom, integrity and compassion. Values that are - and have always been - at the heart of Catholic education in Scotland.

Ferdinand de Saussure photo

“Psychologically our thought-apart from its expression in words-is only a shapeless and indistinct mass.”

Source: Cours de linguistique générale (1916), p. 111-112
Source: Course in General Linguistics
Context: Psychologically our thought-apart from its expression in words-is only a shapeless and indistinct mass. Philosophers and linguists have always agreed in recognizing that without the help of signs we would be unable to make a clear-cut, consistent distinction between two ideas. Without language, thought is a vague, uncharted nebula. here are no pre-existing ideas, and nothing is distinct before the appearance of language.

Barbara Kingsolver photo
David Mamet photo
Arnold Mindell photo

“Deep Democracy is our sense that the world is here to help us to become our entire selves, and that we are here to help the world to become whole.”

Arnold Mindell (1940) American psychologist

Mindell, A. (1992). The Leader as Martial Artist: An Introduction to Deep Democracy (1st ed.). San Francisco: Harper San Francisco.

Felix Adler photo

“The moral law is the expression of our inmost nature, and when we live in consonance with it we feel that we are living out our true being.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Section 6 : Higher Life
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)
Context: An ideal is a port toward which we resolve to steer. We may not reach it. The mere fact that our goal is definitely located does not suffice to conduct us thither. But surely we shall thus stand a better chance of making port in the end than if we drift about aimlessly, the sport of winds and tides, without having decided in our own minds in what direction we ought to bend our course.
The moral law is the expression of our inmost nature, and when we live in consonance with it we feel that we are living out our true being.

Related topics