“Kandinsky was an optimist; he had been interested, at first, in fairy tales and legends and chivalrous themes of the past, but he then became increasingly interested, after 1908, in formulating what he called the art of the future rather than indulging in romantic visions of the past. Kubin, on the other hand was a pessimist, always haunted by the past and suspicious of the future. This basic difference in their temperaments made their discussions all the more fruitful, and their friendship was the more intense.”

— Gabriele Münter

Source: Interview by Edouard Roditi (1958), p. 118

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 "Kandinsky was an optimist; he had been interested, at first, in fairy tales and legends and chivalrous themes of the pa…" by Gabriele Münter?

Gabriele Münter 24

German painter 1877–1962

Related quotes

“I've always been more interested in the future than in the past.”

Grace Hopper (1906–1992) American computer scientist and United States Navy officer

As quoted in The Reader's Digest (October 1994), p. 185

“Before adolescence, memory is more interested in the future than the past…”

Gabriel García Márquez book Living to Tell the Tale

Living to Tell the Tale (2002)

“There is no doubt that we have a different vision of the past. What’s important is that I see no reasons for any kind of conflicts in the future. We have no interests that could be contradictory in the future.”

Ivica Dačić (1966) Serbian politician

Source: "Ivica Dacic: Forced solutions don’t lead to stability of the region" in The Srpska Times https://thesrpskatimes.com/ivica-dacic-forced-solutions-dont-lead-to-stability-of-the-region/ (18 September 2018)

“…in general, the traditionalists are backward-looking, conservative; pessimists about the future and optimists about the past.”

Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic

Often quoted as "Traditionalists are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past.", e.g, Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1979) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 112.
Faith for Living (1940)

“He was optimistic about the future of India "Though never too optimistic about its governments - whether central or state, whether past, present or future.”

Fali Sam Nariman (1929) Indian politician

Affirmative action, not quotas for education': Nariman

“The more man ascends through the past, and the more he launches into the future, the greater he will be”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

As quoted in "Diderot" in The Great Infidels (1881) by Robert Green Ingersoll; The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Vol. III (1900), p. 367
Context: The more man ascends through the past, and the more he launches into the future, the greater he will be, and all these philosophers and ministers and truth-telling men who have fallen victims to the stupidity of nations, the atrocities of priests, the fury of tyrants, what consolation was left for them in death? This: That prejudice would pass, and that posterity would pour out the vial of ignominy upon their enemies. O Posterity! Holy and sacred stay of the unhappy and the oppressed; thou who art just, thou who art incorruptible, thou who findest the good man, who unmaskest the hypocrite, who breakest down the tyrant, may thy sure faith, thy consoling faith never, never abandon me!