„There are no mistakes, only happy accidents.“
— Bob Ross American painter, art instructor, and television host 1942 - 1995
Related quotes
„Watching the painter painting
And all the time, the light is changing
And he keeps painting
That bit there, it was an accident
But he's so pleased
It's the best mistake, he could make
And it's my favourite piece.
It's just great.“
— Kate Bush British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer 1958
Song lyrics, Aerial (2005), A Sky of Honey (Disc 2)
„We call “happiness” a certain set of circumstances that makes joy possible. But we call joy that state of mind and emotions that needs nothing to feel happy.“
— André Gide French novelist and essayist 1869 - 1951
“An Unprejudiced Mind,” p. 326
Pretexts: Reflections on Literature and Morality (1964)
„We need God in ways we do not know. Don't limit your experience of God to what you can think to ask. Ask for the unknown joy.“
— John Piper American writer 1946
John Piper Twitter stream http://twitter.com/JohnPiper/statuses/5570283801 (2009-11-09).
„Life is not governed by chance; it is not random. Your very existence has been willed by God, blessed and given a purpose! Life is not just a succession of events or experiences. It is a search for the true, the good and the beautiful. It is to this end that we make our choices; it is for this that we exercise our freedom; it is in this - in truth, in goodness, and in beauty - that we find happiness and joy.“
— Pope Benedict XVI 265th Pope of the Catholic Church 1927
2008, Papal Welcome (17 July 2008)
„Happiness is the feeling we experience when we are too busy to be miserable.“
— Thomas Lansing Masson American journalist 1866 - 1934
Tom Masson in: The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, Vol. 61 (1901). p. 319.
„A large vocabulary is like an artist having a big palette of colors. We don't have to use all the colors in a single painting, but it helps to be able to find just the right shade when we need it.“
— Anu Garg Indian author 1967
The Philomath Speaks An Interview with Anu Garg (Dec 15, 2009) http://www.nas.org/articles/The_Philomath_Speaks_An_Interview_with_Anu_Garg
„There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.“
— Henry Ford American industrialist 1863 - 1947
„To neglect your own mind, that's like to neglect your consciousness. That’s like to give up all hope of joy and happiness, really. You're the only one that can discover for you the meaning of anything. What it means to you. By that, I don't mean intellectual meaning. I mean, what it means, how it makes you feel. You have to see whether you really are happy or not. Whether you really are sad or not. And you have to investigate what goes through your mind.“
— Agnes Martin American artist 1912 - 2004
1974
1970's, interview, K. Horsfield & L. Blumenthal
„Music comes first; lyrics are secondary. Most of my lyrics are contradictions. I'll write a few sincere lines, and then I'll have to make fun of [them]. I don't like to make it too obvious, because if it is too obvious, it gets really stale. You shouldn't be in people's faces 100% all the time. We don't mean to be really cryptic or mysterious, but I just think that lyrics that are different and weird and spacey paint a nice picture. It's just the way I like art.“
— Kurt Cobain American musician and artist 1967 - 1994
Date unknown, but appears on Live! Tonight! Sold Out!!.
Interviews (1989-1994), Video
„You can't make a perfect painting. We can see perfection in our minds. But we can't make a perfect painting.“
— Agnes Martin American artist 1912 - 2004
interview with Joan Simon, 1995 in Perfection is in the Mind, p. 86; as quoted in A House Divided: American Art Since 1955, Anne M. G. Wagner, Univ. of California Press, 2012, p. 263
1980 - 2000
„Happiness is just how you feel when you don't feel miserable.“
— John Lennon English singer and songwriter 1940 - 1980
Source: The Beatles Anthology (2000), p. 171
„We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.“
— Charles Kingsley English clergyman, historian and novelist 1819 - 1875
„Happiness is possible only in a relationship with a partner. Imagine that some fellow who has lived his life as a singer goes to an uninhabited island and sings as loudly as possible. If there is no one there to hear him, he will not be happy. To realize that we exist for the sake of others is the great achievement that changes our lives. When we realize that our life is not ours alone but is meant to be for the sake of the other, we begin to follow a path different from the one we were on. Just as singing to yourself will not make you happy, there is no joy without a partner. Even the smallest and most trivial thing can bring you happiness when you do it for another.“
— Sun Myung Moon Korean religious leader 1920 - 2012
2009, As a Peace-loving Global Citizen http://www.euro-tongil.org/TFbiography.pdf, Page 139.
„To what happy accident is it that we owe so unexpected a visit?“
— Oliver Goldsmith, book The Vicar of Wakefield
Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 19.
„See, I never understand why my paintings hold together because I don't have any tricks for doing it and that is usually what makes a painting academic. There were some well-known devices for making a painting work hold together, ave cohesion. This seemed to be organized. But I don't necessarily have to know what the mechanism is. For me, what it really is, is something you have in yourself that makes you feel, it gives the painting a feeling of unity, of oneness, and being of all of one piece.“
— Adolph Gottlieb American artist 1903 - 1974
Source: 1960s, Interview with Dorothy Seckler, 1967, p. 55-59.
„How little a thing can make us happy when we feel that we have earned it.“
— Mark Twain American author and humorist 1835 - 1910
Source: The Diaries of Adam and Eve
„With experience it seems to be possible to control the flow of paint, to a great extent, and I don't use – I don't use the accident – 'cause I deny the accident.... it's quite different from working, say, from a still life where you set up objects and work directly from them. I do have a general notion of what I'm about and what the results will be. I approach painting in the same sense as one approaches drawing, that is, it's direct.“
— Jackson Pollock American artist 1912 - 1956
Source: 1950's, Interview by William Wright, Summer 1950, p. 144