“Which brings us to the arts, whose purpose, in common with astrology, is to use frauds in order to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. Dancers show us human beings who move much more gracefully than human beings really move. Films and books and plays show us people talking much more entertainingly than people really talk, make paltry human enterprises seem important. Singers and musicians show us human beings making sounds far more lovely than human beings really make. Architects give us temples in which something marvelous is obviously going on. Actually, practically nothing is going on inside. And on and on.”

Bennington College address (1970)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Which brings us to the arts, whose purpose, in common with astrology, is to use frauds in order to make human beings se…" by Kurt Vonnegut?

Kurt Vonnegut318

American writer 1922–2007

Related quotes

“In the phrase ' human being,' the word 'being' is much more important than the word 'human.”

Karen Joy Fowler book We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Source: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

“It's human to make mistakes and some of us are more human than others.”

Ashleigh Brilliant (1933) American author and cartoonist

“Being human is difficult. Some people make it more difficult than others. I was one of those people.”

Lana Del Rey (1985) American singer-songwriter

Complex (24 January 2012)

“We can choose to be audacious enough to take responsibility for the entire human family. We can choose to make our love for the world what our lives are really about. Each of us has the opportunity, the privilege, to make a difference in creating a world that works for all of us. It will require courage, audacity and heart. It is much more radical than a revolution – it is the beginning of a transformation in the quality of life on our planet. What we create together is a relationship in which our work can show up as making a difference in people's lives. I welcome the unprecedented opportunity for us to work globally on that which concerns us all as human beings. If not you, who? If not now, when? If not here, where?”

Werner Erhard (1935) Critical Thinker and Author

Source: The Graduate Review (1980)

“I am a flawed human being - a far more flawed human being than you
realize.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

“The fact that we are human beings is infinitely more important than all the peculiarities that distinguish human beings from one another; it is never the given that confers superiorities: "virtue", as the ancients called it, is defined at the level of "that which depends on us."”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

In both sexes is played out the same drama of the flesh and the spirit, of finitude and transcendence; both are gnawed away by time and laid in wait for by death, they have the same essential need for one another; and they can gain from their liberty the same glory. If they were to taste it, they would no longer be tempted to dispute fallacious privileges, and fraternity between them could then come into existence.
The Second Sex (1949)

“Human beings seem to be far more autonomous and self-governed than modern psychological theory allows for.”

Abraham Maslow book Motivation and Personality

Source: Motivation and Personality (1954), p. 123.