
“Anyone who reads a book with a sense of obligation does not understand the art of reading.”
Source: The Importance of Living
Source: Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (1958), Chapter Three, The Testimony Of Modern Art, p. 37
“Anyone who reads a book with a sense of obligation does not understand the art of reading.”
Source: The Importance of Living
“Those who have suffered understand suffering and therefore extend their hand.”
Interview with Christian Salmon (Fall 1983), Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, Series Seven [Viking, 1988, ], pp. 217-218
Context: Do you realize that people don't know how to read Kafka simply because they want to decipher him? Instead of letting themselves be carried away by his unequaled imagination, they look for allegories — and come up with nothing but clichés: life is absurd (or it is not absurd), God is beyond reach (or within reach), etc. You can understand nothing about art, particularly modern art, if you do not understand that imagination is a value in itself.
As quoted by Marius de Zayas, in 'The Arts', New York, May 1923
1920s, The Arts', New York, May 1923
"Art a Thing of No Consequence"
The Dehumanization of Art and Ideas about the Novel (1925)
Context: Were art to redeem man, it could do so only by saving him from the seriousness of life and restoring him to an unexpected boyishness. The symbol of art is seen again in the magic flute of the Great God Pan which makes the young goats frisk at the edge of the grove.
All modern art begins to appear comprehensible and in a way great when it is interpreted as an attempt to instill youthfulness into an ancient world.
Source: The Social History of Art', Volume II. Renaissance, Mannerism, Baroque, 1999, Chapter 9. The Baroque of the Catholic Courts
“Modernity widened the distance between the sensational and the relevant.”
Source: Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012), p. 109
"Initial Reactions on the Assassination of Malcolm X"
1960s, Soul on Ice (1968)