Quotes about craft
A collection of quotes on the topic of craft, doing, work, working.
Quotes about craft

on the topic of hand-drawn animation (2005) The Guardian article http://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/sep/14/japan.awardsandprizes
On Animation

Tract 83 http://anglicanhistory.org/tracts/tract83.html (29 June 1838).


2015, Remarks after the Umpqua Community College shooting (October 2015)

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)
Introduction, p. viii.
On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976)

The New York Times, March 25, 2007.

As quoted in Paul Klee, 1879-1940 (2000) by w:Susanna Partsch, p. 47

“1200. Craft must have Clothes; but Truth loves to go naked.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Source: Terre des Hommes (1939), Ch. I : The Craft
Context: I had a vision of the face of destiny.
Old bureaucrat, my comrade, it is not you who are to blame. No one ever helped you to escape. You, like a termite, built your peace by blocking up with cement every chink and cranny through which the light might pierce. You rolled yourself up into a ball in your genteel security, in routine, in the stifling conventions of provincial life, raising a modest rampart against the winds and the tides and the stars. You have chosen not to be perturbed by great problems, having trouble enough to forget your own fate as man. You are not the dweller upon an errant planet and do not ask yourself questions to which there are no answers. You are a petty bourgeois of Toulouse. Nobody grasped you by the shoulder while there was still time. Now the clay of which you were shaped has dried and hardened, and naught in you will ever awaken the sleeping musician, the poet, the astronomer that possibly inhabited you in the beginning.
The squall has ceased to be a cause of my complaint. The magic of the craft has opened for me a world in which I shall confront, within two hours, the black dragons and the crowned crests of a coma of blue lightnings, and when night has fallen I, delivered, shall read my course in the stars.

Speech in reply to Senator Stephen Douglas in the Lincoln-Douglas debates http://www.bartleby.com/251/1003.html of the 1858 campaign for the U.S. Senate, at Chicago, Illinois (10 July 1858)
1850s, Lincoln–Douglas debates (1858)
Context: Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their condition will allow. What are these arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden. That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you will, whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of this country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent, and I hold if that course of argumentation that is made for the purpose of convincing the public mind that we should not care about this, should be granted, it does not stop with the negro. I should like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, and making exceptions to it, where will it stop? If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man? If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book, in which we find it, and tear it out! Who is so bold as to do it? If it is not true let us tear it out! [Cries of "No, No."] Let us stick to it, then; let us stand firmly by it, then. It may be argued that there are certain conditions that make necessities and impose them upon us, and to the extent that a necessity is imposed upon a man, he must submit to it. I think that was the condition in which we found ourselves when we established this Government. We had slavery among us, we could not get our Constitution unless we permitted them to remain in slavery, we could not secure the good we did secure if we grasped for more; and having by necessity submitted to that much, it does not destroy the principle that is the charter of our liberties. Let that charter stand as our standard.

“Diplomacy, of course, is a subtle and nuanced craft”
Address to United Nations General Assembly http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1987/092187b.htm (21 September 1987)
1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989)
Context: Diplomacy, of course, is a subtle and nuanced craft, so much so that it's said that when the most wily diplomat of the nineteenth-century passed away, other diplomats asked, on reports of his death, "What do you suppose the old fox meant by that?"

Letter to Lambertus Grunnius (August 1516), publised in Life and Letters of Erasmus : Lectures delivered at Oxford 1893-4 (1894) http://books.google.com/books?id=ussXAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA180&lpg=PA180&dq=%22is+no+discipline+and+which+are+worse+than+brothels%22&source=bl&ots=PnJjrkSLNB&sig=JPY0PhTf2YgYwJlf3uH2eTvCJeA&hl=en&ei=BGwXTNqTA5XANu6_pJ8L&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22is%20no%20discipline%20and%20which%20are%20worse%20than%20brothels%22&f=false edited by James Anthony Froude, p. 180
Context: There are monasteries where there is no discipline, and which are worse than brothels — ut prae his lupanaria sint et magis sobria et magis pudica. There are others where religion is nothing but ritual; and these are worse than the first, for the Spirit of God is not in them, and they are inflated with self-righteousness. There are those, again, where the brethren are so sick of the imposture that they keep it up only to deceive the vulgar. The houses are rare indeed where the rule is seriously observed, and even in these few, if you look to the bottom, you will find small sincerity. But there is craft, and plenty of it — craft enough to impose on mature men, not to say innocent boys; and this is called profession. Suppose a house where all is as it ought to be, you have no security that it will continue so. A good superior may be followed by a fool or a tyrant, or an infected brother may introduce a moral plague. True, in extreme cases a monk may change his house, or even may change his order, but leave is rarely given. There is always a suspicion of something wrong, and on the least complaint such a person is sent back.

“Strategy is the craft of the warrior.”
Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Ground Book
Context: Strategy is the craft of the warrior. Commanders must enact the craft, and troopers should know this Way. There is no warrior in the world today who really understands the Way of strategy.
There are various Ways. There is the Way of salvation by the law of Buddha, the Way of Confucius governing the Way of learning, the Way of healing as a doctor, as a poet teaching the Way of Waka, tea, archery, and many arts and skills. Each man practices as he feels inclined.

1790s, Letter to the Addressers (1792)
Context: It is from a strange mixture of tyranny and cowardice that exclusions have been set up and continued. The boldness to do wrong at first, changes afterwards into cowardly craft, and at last into fear. The Representatives in England appear now to act as if they were afraid to do right, even in part, lest it should awaken the nation to a sense of all the wrongs it has endured. This case serves to shew that the same conduct that best constitutes the safety of an individual, namely, a strict adherence to principle, constitutes also the safety of a Government, and that without it safety is but an empty name. When the rich plunder the poor of his rights, it becomes an example of the poor to plunder the rich of his property, for the rights of the one are as much property to him as wealth is property to the other and the little all is as dear as the much. It is only by setting out on just principles that men are trained to be just to each other; and it will always be found, that when the rich protect the rights of the poor, the poor will protect the property of the rich. But the guarantee, to be effectual, must be parliamentarily reciprocal.

Source: Terre des Hommes (1939), Ch. I : The Craft
Context: "Navigating by the compass in a sea of clouds over Spain is all very well, it is very dashing, but—"
And I was struck by the graphic image:
"But you want to remember that below the sea of clouds lies eternity."
And suddenly that tranquil cloud-world, that world so harmless and simple that one sees below on rising out of the clouds, took on in my eyes a new quality. That peaceful world became a pitfall. I imagined the immense white pitfall spread beneath me. Below it reigned not what one might think — not the agitation of men, not the living tumult and bustle of cities, but a silence even more absolute than in the clouds, a peace even more final. This viscous whiteness became in my mind the frontier between the real and the unreal, between the known and the unknowable. Already I was beginning to realize that a spectacle has no meaning except it be seen through the glass of a culture, a civilization, a craft. Mountaineers too know the sea of clouds, yet it does not seem to them the fabulous curtain it is to me.

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Reverend James Madison http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mtj:@field(DOCID+@lit(tj090050)) (31 January 1800).
About Weishaupt

Letter to Lambertus Grunnius (August 1516), published in Life and Letters of Erasmus : Lectures delivered at Oxford 1893-4 (1894) http://books.google.com/books?id=ussXAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA180&lpg=PA180&dq=%22is+no+discipline+and+which+are+worse+than+brothels%22&source=bl&ots=PnJjrkSLNB&sig=JPY0PhTf2YgYwJlf3uH2eTvCJeA&hl=en&ei=BGwXTNqTA5XANu6_pJ8L&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22is%20no%20discipline%20and%20which%20are%20worse%20than%20brothels%22&f=false edited by James Anthony Froude, p. 180

“That's a very good way to learn the craft of writing — from reading.”
Faulkner in the University, p. 117
Faulkner in the University (1959)

Original: (de) "Glaubt mir, des Menschen wahrster Wahn
wird ihm im Traume aufgetan:
all' Dichtkunst und Poeterei
ist nichts als Wahrtraumdeuterei."
Source: Quotes from his operas, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Hans Sachs, Act 3, Scene 2


“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”
New York Journal-American (11 July 1961)
Source: The Wild Years
Source: Draw the Circle: The 40 Day Prayer Challenge

“But you cannot change your past, no matter how you craft your future.”
Source: The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto: A Novel

“Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form.”
Source: The Elements of Typographic Style
Evening Post, 2004 (taken from "Home Sweet Home - Banksy's Bristol" by Steve Wright)
Other sources
Source: Wall and Piece

“If you're going to make a science fiction movie, then have a hover craft chase, for God's sake.”
Reflection of Nicol Peters, journalist, in Ch. III
Lazarus (1990)

Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature (1979).

“The craftsman is in his own craft beguiled.”
Lo schermitor vinto è di schermo.
Canto XIX, stanza 14 (tr. Fairfax)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)

Letter to artists, 4 April 1999
Source: Libreria Editrice Vaticana http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_23041999_artists_en.html
Homage to the square' (1964), Oral history interview with Josef Albers' (1968)
Source: The Philosophical Implications of Talking Vegetables (2005), p. 1

On writing and publishing, interview with Megan Abbott (2011)
2003–2016

Interview at Skidmore College Aug 1995,published 'Paris Review' no 144 Fall 1997
The Art of Poetry - interview 1995 with Downing & Kunitz
Source: Fiction, And Chaos Died (1970), Chapter 3 (p. 120)
Source: The Revival of Aristocracy (1906), p. 37.

The Story of Chang Tao, Melodious Vision and the Dragon
Kai Lung's Golden Hours (1922)

Swapan Dasgupta Indian Express of July 23, 1995. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 7
Chris Argyris (2004) in: " Surfacing Your Underground Organization http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/4456.html" on hbswk.hbs.edu by Mallory Stark, 11/1/2004

Acceptance speech, Pritzker Architecture Prize http://www.pritzkerprize.com/bunnei.htm#Oscar%20Niemeyer's%20Acceptance%20Speech (1988).
POTUS election could have ‘huge’ impact on Mich. judges http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/06/04/potus-election-huge-impact-mich-judges/85424958/ (June 4, 2016)

Dharmapal: The Beautiful Tree, Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century. (1983)

Online and on the Bench, the ‘Tweeter Laureate of Texas’ Is All About Judicial Engagement (September 17, 2015)
The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Goddess (1979)

[Feingold Pushes to Keep Arctic Drilling out of Budget Process (press release), http://feingold.senate.gov/~feingold/releases/06/03/20060306.html, U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, 20 August 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20080412072316/http://feingold.senate.gov/~feingold/releases/06/03/20060306.html, April 12, 2008, March 6, 2006]
2006
Source: The Apophenion (2008), p. 107-108

Source: Earthsea Books, The Farthest Shore (1972), Chapter 8, "The Children of the Open Sea" (Ged)

Davis, Leesa, "Who Got the Part: Carson Grant", Backstage, November 9, 2006, p. 18.
About his ABC's audition philosophy printed in 2006 Backstage.
Source: Designing complex organizations, 1973, p. 12

Source: 1961 - 1980, transcript of a public forum at Boston university', conducted by Joseph Ablow 1966, p. 67
"Brotherhood by Inversion", p. 328
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)
Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 13, Bits & Pieces, p. 136.
Review http://www.reelviews.net/movies/b/batman_begins.html of Batman Begins (2005).
Three-and-a-half star reviews

On the national debate, Speech http://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/10/us/biden-joins-campaign-for-the-presidency.html announcing entry into 1988 presidential race, Wilmington, Delaware (June 10, 1987)
1980s

Hearts and Crafts.
Song lyrics, Portrait - The Music of Dan Fogelberg (1997)

Books, Islam and the West: A Conversation with Bernard Lewis (2006)

Source: Quoted in: Researcher's Close Encounters Convince Him Of Extraterrestrials The Virginian-Pilot, Roy A. Bahls, http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=VP&p_theme=vp&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EAFF84CB5EACDC1&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM (22 March 1995)
Quoted in Craig Modderno, "Newman remains animated at 81," Reuters (2006-06-12)

Anwar Ibrahim said during a meeting event with bankers and fund managers at a Port Dickson hotel, quoted on The Star Online, "Anwar underscores the need to help the poor" https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2018/10/10/anwar-underscores-the-need-to-help-the-poor/, 10 October 2018.
Source: Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (1978–1990), p. xxvi (New Intergalactic Introduction).

“I don't believe that we all should eat squirrels and craft our own doorknobs.”
On Pod Save America.

Source: The Cabinet Council (published 1658), Chapter 25

Source: Applied Motion Study (1917), p. 3.

"Über Descartes Leben und seine Methode die Vernunft Richtig zu Leiten und die Wahrheit in den Wissenschaften zu Suchen," "About Descartes' Life and Method of Reason.." (Jan 3, 1846) C. G. J. Jacobi's Gesammelte werke Vol. 7 https://books.google.com/books?id=_09tAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA309 p.309, as quoted by Tobias Dantzig, Number: The Language of Science (1930).

Letter to F. Cobden (11 September 1838), quoted in John Morley, The Life of Richard Cobden (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1905), p. 130.
1830s

Sara Malakul Lane – Getting to Know http://somethingyousaid.com/2013/08/07/getting-to-know-sara-malakul-lane-2/ (August 7, 2013)

La critique souvent n'est pas une science; c'est un métier, où il faut plus de santé que d'esprit, plus de travail que de capacité, plus d'habitude que de génie. Si elle vient d'un homme qui ait moins de discernement que de lecture, et qu'elle s'exerce sur de certains chapitres, elle corrompt et les lecteurs et l'écrivain.
Aphorism 63
Les Caractères (1688), Des Ouvrages de l'Esprit