Abstract Quotes - Page 2

• I was worried in the '80s that the best abstract painting had become obsessed with materiality, and painterly gestures and materiality were up against the wall.

  Frank Stella

  Wall, Artist, Abstract Painting

  "With Frank Stella, what you see is what you see. But when the modern master speaks, what you hear may raise your eyebrows."by Kenneth Baker, www.sfgate.com. June 17, 2004.

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• I never learned to verbalize an abstract musical concept. No thank you. The whole point of being a serious musician is to avoid verbalization whenever you can.

  Virgil Thomson

  Thank You, Musical, Musician

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• If the abstract rights of man will bear discussion and explanation, those of women, by a parity of reasoning, will not shrink from the same test.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Women, Rights, Tests

  Mary Wollstonecraft (2008). “A Vindication of the Rights of Women & a Vindication of the Rights of Men”, p.17, Cosimo, Inc.

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• If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

  David Hume

  School, Math, Numbers

  An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding sec. 12, pt. 3 (1748)

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• Some manufacturers illustrate their advertisements with abstract paintings. I would only do this if I wished to conceal from the reader what I was advertising.

  David Ogilvy

  Abstract Painting, Advertising, Reader

  David Ogilvy (1963). “Confessions of an advertising man”, Holiday House

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• When I was thinking about The Lion King, I said, we have to do what theater does best. What theater does best is to be abstract and not to do literal reality.

  Julie Taymor

  Kings, Reality, Thinking

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• History is representational, while time is abstract; both of these artifices may be found in museums, where they span everybody's own vacancy

  Robert Smithson

  Museums, Vacancy, May

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.41, Univ of California Press

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• Money is human happiness in the abstract.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Money, Philosophical, Riches

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2013). “Religion From the Essays of Arhur Schopenhauer”, p.54, Simon and Schuster

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• Abstraction is a mental process we use when trying to discern what is essential or relevant to a problem; it does not require a belief in abstract entities.

  Tom G. Palmer

  Trying, Essentials, Doe

  Tom G. Palmer (2009). “Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice”, p.34, Cato Institute

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• Many attempts have been made by writers on art and poetry to define beauty in the abstract, to express it in the most general terms, to find some universal formula for it.

  Walter Pater

  Beauty, Art, Made

  Walter Pater (2013). “The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry”, p.1, Courier Corporation

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• How many people make themselves abstract to appear profound. The most useful part of abstract terms are the shadows they create to hide a vacuum.

  Joseph Joubert

  People, Profound, Shadow

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• Verse is not written, it is bled; Out of the poet's abstract head. Words drip the poem on the page; Out of his grief, delight and rage.

  Paul Engle

  Grief, Delight, Pages

  Paul Engle (1965). “A Woman Unashamed: And Other Poems”, New York, Random House

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• Northern white people love the Negro in a sort of abstract way, as a race; through a sense of justice, charity, and philanthropy, they will liberally assist in his elevation.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Race, White, People

  James Weldon Johnson (2012). “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man”, p.80, Courier Corporation

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• We invoke the sacrifices of our fallen heroes in the abstract, but we seldom take time to thank them individually.

  Rahm Emanuel

  Teamwork, Hero, Sacrifice

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• We have wasted our spirit in the regions of the abstract and general just as the monks let it wither in the world of prayer and contemplation.

  Alexander Herzen

  Prayer, World, Spirit

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• The abstract analysis of the world by mathematics and physics rests on the concepts of space and time.

  James J. Gibson

  Space, Analysis, World

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• I felt the most intense pleasure in piercing the stone in order to make an abstract form and space; quite a different sensation from that of doing it for the purpose of realism.

  Barbara Hepworth

  Order, Space, Different

  Dame Barbara Hepworth (1952). “Carvings and Drawings”

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• Yes, I did, I mean I painted er, in a kind of abstract expressionist way, because of course that was exciting.

  David Hockney

  Mean, Way, Kind

  Interview with John Tusa, www.americansuburbx.com. 2004.

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• Wisdom is the abstract of the past, but beauty is the promise of the future.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Beauty, Past, Beautiful Women

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Professor At The Breakfast Table”, p.31, Reprint Services Corporation

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• She was good at playing abstract confusion in the same way that a midget is good at being short.

  Clive James

  Confusion, Way, Midget

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Abstraction didn't have to be limited to a kind of rectilinear geometry or even a simple curve geometry. It could have a geometry that had a narrative impact. In other words, you could tell a story with the shapes. It wouldn't be a literal story, but the shapes and the interaction of the shapes and colors would give you a narrative sense. You could have a sense of an abstract piece flowing along and being part of an action or activity. That sort of turned me on.

  Frank Stella

  Simple, Impact, Curves

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms: and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Men, Aphorism, Portions

  Aids to Reflection "Introductory Aphorisms" (1825)

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• All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs.

  Denis Diderot

  Science, Technology, Study

  "D'Alembert's Dream". Book by Denis Diderot, 1830.

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• And also the new excitement and variety of ways that the abstract expressionists were applying paint. You could put it on as though it were colored air and it would be painting.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Air, Would Be, Way

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• None of the abstract concepts comes closer to fulfilled utopia than that of eternal peace.

  Theodor Adorno

  Utopia, Fulfilled, Eternal

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.157, Verso

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