Abstract Quotes - Page 3

• Abstract art: a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.

  Al Capp

  Sarcastic, Art, Architecture

  In National Observer 1 July 1963

  73 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the abstract conception of universal wrong, all concrete responsibility vanishes.

  Theodor Adorno

  Responsibility, Concrete, Universal

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.25, Verso

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete.

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  Philosophical, Judging, Evil

  38 Copy quote

• I say a murder is abstract. You pull the trigger and after that you do not understand anything that happens.

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  Philosophical, Murder, Triggers

  "Dirty Hands". Play by Jean-Paul Sartre, Act 5, sc. 2, 1948.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men.

  Epicurus

  Philosophical, Men, Justice

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  8 Copy quote

• 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)

  86 Copy quote

  Show source

• Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works.

  John Keats

  Men, Criticism, Blame

  John Keats (2015). “John Keats - The Man Behind The Lyrics: Life, letters, and literary remains: Complete Letters and Two Extensive Biographies of one of the most beloved English Romantic poets”, p.225, e-artnow

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is plenty of courage among us for the abstract, but not for the concrete.

  Helen Keller

  Concrete, Plenty

  Helen Keller (1957). “The Open Door”, Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Abstract art is uniquely modern. It is a fundamentally romantic response to modern life - rebellious, individualistic, unconventional, sensitive, irritable.

  Robert Motherwell

  Art, Modern Life, Unconventional

  Robert Motherwell (1999). “The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell”

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• I want people to know what it is they're looking at. But at the same time, the closer they get to the painting, it's like going back into childhood. And it's like an abstract piece.. it becomes the landscape of the brush marks rather than just sort of an intellectual landscape.

  Jenny Saville

  People, Childhood, Intellectual

  87 Copy quote

• To love God and neighbor is not something abstract, but profoundly concrete: it means seeing in every person and face of the Lord to be served, to serve him concretely. And you are, dear brothers and sisters, in the face of Jesus.

  Pope Francis

  Jesus, Brother, Mean

  51 Copy quote

• Abstract means literally to draw from or separate. In this sense every artist is abstract for he must create his own work from his visual impressions. A realistic or non-objective approach makes no difference. The result is what counts.

  Richard Diebenkorn

  Art, Mean, Differences

  "Richard Diebenkorn".

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• You like it, that's all, whether it's a landscape or abstract. You like it. It hits you. You don't have to read it. The work of art-sculpture or painting-forces your eye.

  Clement Greenberg

  Art, Eye, Sculpture

  22 Copy quote

• Combien de gens se font abstraits pour para?tre profonds! La plupart des termes abstraits sont des ombres qui cachent des vides. How many people become abstract in order to appear profound! Most abstract terms are shadows that conceal a void.

  Joseph Joubert

  Order, People, Profound

  10 Copy quote

• When we talk about violence, we're talking about the destruction of the human body, and I don't lose sight of that. In general, my filmmaking is fairly body-oriented, because what you're photographing is people, bodies.

  David Cronenberg

  Sight, Talking, People

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

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Friendship's an abstract of this noble flame, 'Tis love refin'd, and purged from all its dross, 'Tis next to angel's love, if not the same, As strong in passion is, though not so gross.

  Katherine Philips

  Friendship, Strong, Passion

  11 Copy quote

• Out of doing all that experimentation with sound I decided I wanted to do it with live musicians. To take repetition, take music fragments and make it live. Musicians would be able to play it and create this kind of abstract fabric of sound.

  Terry Riley

  Play, Musician, Sound

  8 Copy quote

• Everyone confesses in the abstract that exertion which brings out all the powers of body and mind is the best thing for us all; but practically most people do all they can to get rid of it, and as a general rule nobody does much more than circumstances drive them to do.

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Best Effort, People, Mind

  "The Lady Who Does Her Own Work". The Atlantic Monthly, 1864.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the mathematics I can report no deficience, except that it be that men do not sufficiently understand the excellent use of the pure mathematics, in that they do remedy and cure many defects in the wit and faculties intellectual. For if the wit be too dull, they sharpen it; if too wandering, they fix it; if too inherent in the sense, they abstract it.

  Roger Bacon

  Math, Men, Intellectual

  16 Copy quote

• It all depends on the directors. Working closely with a director is the main job of a film composer. Interpreting what he perceives as a color, an emotion or mood is very abstract. A director tells you something he wants and then you have to run back...

  Danny Elfman

  Running, Jobs, Color

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

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• We think of Euclid as of fine ice; we admire Newton as we admire the peak of Teneriffe. Even the intensest labors, the most remote triumphs of the abstract intellect, seem to carry us into a region different from our own-to be in a terra incognita of pure reasoning, to cast a chill on human glory.

  Walter Bagehot

  Science, Thinking, Ice

  Walter Bagehot, Richard Holt Hutton (1891). “Literary studies ; Religious and metaphysical essays ; Letters on the French coup d'état”

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• I can't always reach the image in my mind... almost never, in fact... so that the abstract image I create is not quite there, but it gets to the point where I can leave it.

  Chuck Close

  Photography, Mind, Facts

  7 Copy quote

• Beauty too often sacrifices to fashion. The spirit of fashion is not the beautiful, but the wilful; not the graceful, but the fantastic; not the superior in the abstract, but the superior in the worst of all concretes,-the vulgar.

  Leigh Hunt

  Beauty, Beautiful, Fashion

  Leigh Hunt (1870). “Men, Women, and Books: A Selection of Sketches, Essays, and Critical Memoirs from His Uncollected Prose Writings”, p.164

  7 Copy quote

  Show source