Yquotes.com

 

...aesthetic Socratism, the chief law of which is, more or less: "to be beautiful everything must first be intelligible" — a parallel to the Socratic dictum: "only the one who knows is virtuous."
--
p. 62.

 

Friedrich Nietzsche

» Friedrich Nietzsche - all quotes »

Similar quotes

 

"Purity" of and in art — any art, including music and dance — is an illusory notion, of course. It may be remotely conceivable or imaginable, but it can't be realized because it can't be recognized any more than a "pure" human being or a "pure" (or, for that matter, gratuitous) act can be. All the same, for Western art in its Modernist phase "purity" has been a useful idea and ideal, with a kind of logic to it that has worked, and still works, to generate aesthetic value and maintain aesthetic standards as nothing else in our specializing culture has over the last hundred-odd years.

 

Clement Greenberg

 

"But tell me how it is that she could be so beautiful without any heart at all—without any place even for a heart to live in." "I cannot quite tell," she said; "but I am sure she would not look so beautiful if she did not take means to make herself look more beautiful than she is. And then, you know, you began by being in love with her before you saw her beauty...But the chief thing that makes her beautiful is this: that, although she loves no man, she loves the love of any man; and when she finds one in her power, her desire to bewitch him and gain his love (not for the sake of his love either, but that she may be conscious anew of her own beauty, through the admiration he manifests), makes her very lovely—with a self-destructive beauty..." (on the Alder Tree)

 

George MacDonald

 

To tell you the truth, I am rather perplexed about the concept of "art”. What one person considers to be "art" is often not "art" to another. "Beautiful" and "ugly" are old-fashioned concepts that are seldom applied these days; perhaps justifiably, who knows? Something repulsive, which gives you a moral hangover, and hurts your ears or eyes, may well be art. Only "kitsch" is not art - we're all agreed about that. Indeed, but what is "kitsch"? If only I knew!

 

M. C. Escher

 

"I'm scared of him," said Piggy, "and that's why I know him. If you're scared of someone you hate him but you can't stop thinking about him. You kid yourself he's alright really, an' then when you see him again; it's like asthma an' you can't breath. I tell you what. He hates you too, Ralph —"
"Me? Why me?"
"I dunno. You got him over the fire; an' you're chief an' he isn't."
"But he's Jack Merridew!"
"I been in bed so much I done some thinking. I know about people. I know about me. And him. He can't hurt you: but if you're standing out of the way he'd hurt the next thing. And that's me."
"Piggy's right, Ralph. There's you and Jack. Go on being chief."

 

William Golding