“The concrete man has but one interest — to be right. That to him is the art of all arts, and all means are fair which help him to it.”

—  William James

1880s, The Sentiment of Rationality (1882)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update April 6, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The concrete man has but one interest — to be right. That to him is the art of all arts, and all means are fair which h…" by William James?
William James photo
William James 246
American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist 1842–1910

Related quotes

John Galsworthy photo

“Art is that imaginative expression of human energy, which, through technical concretion of feeling and perception, tends to reconcile the individual with the universal, by exciting in him impersonal emotion.”

John Galsworthy (1867–1933) English novelist and playwright

Vague Thoughts On Art (1911)
Context: Art is that imaginative expression of human energy, which, through technical concretion of feeling and perception, tends to reconcile the individual with the universal, by exciting in him impersonal emotion. And the greatest Art is that which excites the greatest impersonal emotion in an hypothecated perfect human being.

Salvador Dalí photo

“We are all hungry and thirsty for concrete images. Abstract art will have been good for one thing: to restore its exact virginity to figurative art.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist
Ludwig Wittgenstein photo

“The idea that in order to get clear about the meaning of a general term one had to find the common element in all its applications has shackled philosophical investigation; for it has not only led to no result, but also made the philosopher dismiss as irrelevant the concrete cases, which alone could have helped him understand the usage of the general term.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: 1930s-1951, The Blue Book (c. 1931–1935; published 1965), p. 19

“All art that is expressive has to be illusionistic. The raw material out of which art is built is not necessarily in itself potent; you must transform it. Contours, tactility, touch, color, intervals, that's all part of the concreteness of art. You have to make the concreteness expressive. That way you don't cater to taste. You resist sentimentality. Things in a picture can't remind you too much of anything else. You have to resist all that.”

Kenneth Noland (1924–2010) American artist

Kenneth Noland, p. 24
Conversation with Karen Wilkin' (1986-1988)

James Thurber photo

“Art – the one achievement of man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Considerations by the Way
1860s, The Conduct of Life (1860)

“I think it's called Arte Povera. But it doesn't mean 'poor art'. It means the art which you would do out there if you were nobody at all. Aspects of this are street art and so forth. Earthworks interest me to the single extent that it means a great extension of the possibilities of materials. Dirt is a wonderful material to make things out of. And mud and rocks and things like this…”

Carl Andre (1935) American artist

Source: Artists talks 1969 – 1977, p. 26

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner photo

“.. art is made by man. His own figure is the center of all art... Therefore one must begin with the man himself.”

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) German painter, sculptor, engraver and printmaker

c. 1910; as quoted in: Der Blick auf Fränzi und Marcella: Zwei Modelle der Brücke-Künstler Heckel, Kirchner und Pechstein, Norbert Nobis; Sprengel Museum Hannover und Stiftung Moritzburg, 2011, p 17
1905 - 1915

“One cannot condemn tendencies in art; one can only condemn works of art. To be categorically against a current art tendency or style means, in effect, to pronounce on works of art not yet created and not yet seen. It means inquiring into the motives of artists instead of into results. Yet we all know — or are supposed to know — that results are all that count in art.”

Clement Greenberg (1909–1994) American writer and artist

"Wyndham Lewis Against Abstract Art" (1957), p. 164
1960s, Art and Culture: Critical Essays, (1961)

Kurt Schwitters photo

“Art is a spiritual function of man, which aims at freeing him from life's chaos. Art is free in the use of its means in any way it likes, but is bound to its laws and to its laws alone. The minute it becomes art, it becomes much more sublime than a class distinction between proletariat and bourgeoisie.”

Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) German artist

Manifesto Proletkult, 1923
Schwitters, in discussion with political Dadaists as Huelsenbeck.
1920s

Related topics