Abstract Quotes - Page 7

• Music is the most abstract of the arts and also the most physical....music is under two signs, the stars and the wine

  Edgard Varese

  Art, Stars, Wine

  9 Copy quote

• All good art is abstract.

  John Newman

  Art, Art Is, Good Art

  4 Copy quote

• Do not talk to me of goodness, of abstract justice, of nature law. Necessity is the highest law, public welfare is the highest justice.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Power, Law, Justice

  11 Copy quote

• Politicians of all stripes are always in danger at looking at every problem from an abstract point of view or being briefed by officials, academics, or economists who know every science but the science of human nature.

  Jean Chretien

  Views, Stripes, Problem

  Jean Chretien (2010). “My Years as Prime Minister”, p.238, Vintage Canada

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The piece of music is nothing without the act of interpretation. That is the only way it can live, and it's a totally abstract thing.

  Helene Grimaud

  Pieces, Way, Interpretation

  Interview with Elijah Ho, www.thecounterpoints.com. January 29, 2014.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• America is a simplified ideological abstraction, an emotive symbol represented by other abstract symbols like the flag. It is the object of a faithlike devotion, unencumbered by honest history.

  Michael Parenti

  America, Flags, Honest

  Michael Parenti (2004). “Superpatriotism”, p.9, City Lights Books

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• All art is abstract, because art is an abstraction of the truth.

  Milford Zornes

  Art, Art Is, Abstraction

  4 Copy quote

• I wish to approach truth as closely as is possible, and therefore I abstract everything until I arrive at the fundamental quality of objects.

  Piet Mondrian

  Wish, Quality, Fundamentals

  Piet Mondrian (1971). “Piet Mondrian, 1872-1944: Centennial Exhibition: Held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York”

  59 Copy quote

  Show source

• People think of security as a noun, something you go buy. In reality, it's an abstract concept like happiness. Openness is unbelievably helpful to security.

  James Gosling

  Reality, Thinking, People

  64 Copy quote

• Abstraction is itself an abstract word and has no single meaning ... Every word in our language is abstract, because it represents something else.

  Eric Maisel

  Language, Abstraction

  4 Copy quote

• No cause, no God, no abstract idea can justify the mass slaughter of innocents.

  Edward Said

  Ideas, Causes, Mass

  Edward W. Said (2007). “From Oslo to Iraq and the Road Map: Essays”, p.117, Vintage

  166 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is no abstract Evil; you have to understand that! Its roots are here, all around us, in this herd that goes on chewing and having a good time only an hour after a murder!

  Sergei Lukyanenko

  Roots, Evil, Goes On

  Sergei Lukyanenko (2006). “Night Watch”, Miramax

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Tenderness can be just as abstract as insanity.

  David Lynch

  Insanity, Tenderness

  6 Copy quote

• The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails.

  Barack Obama

  Errors, Government, Doubt

  "'Most Transparent Administration Ever' Is Still Not" by Erika Eichelberger, www.motherjones.com. February 7, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Remember—boredom is the enemy, not some abstract "failure.

  Tim Ferriss

  Inspirational, Boredom, Enemy

  "The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich". Book by Tim Ferriss, 2007.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Aesthetic judgments, rather than abstract reasoning, guide and shape the process by which we all come to know what we know.

  Daniel Tammet

  Motivation, Inspiration, Shapes

  4 Copy quote

• Our biggest challenge in this new century is to take an idea that seems abstract - sustainable development - and turn it into a reality for all the world's people

  Kofi Annan

  Future, Reality, Ideas

  "Annan pleads with west as environment is pushed up UN agenda". www.theguardian.com.

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• We are not talking about a new cognition in relation to abstract art, rather a new area of cognition.

  Asger Jorn

  Art, Talking, Cognition

  Asger Jorn, Per Hovdenakk, Stine Høholt, Arken museum for moderne kunst (Ishøj, Denmark), Cobra Museum voor Moderne Kunst (Amstelveen, Netherlands) (2002). “Asger Jorn”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Pacifism, the preaching of peace in the abstract, is one of the means of duping the working class.

  Vladimir Lenin

  Mean, Class, Pacifism

  "The Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. Groups Abroad". Sotsial-Demokrat, No. 40, March 29, 1915. Collected Works, Volume 21, pp. 158 - 164,

  35 Copy quote

  Show source

• The abstract, unreal freedom of the liberal intellect was really nothing more than childish disobedience, amplified into anarchy.

  Roger Scruton

  Anarchy, Intellect, Unreal

  Roger Scruton (2015). “Gentle Regrets: Thoughts from a Life”, p.48, Bloomsbury Publishing

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• But man is so addicted to systems and to abstract conclusions that he is prepared deliberately to distort the truth, to close his eyes and ears, but justify his logic at all cost.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Life, Eye, Men

  6 Copy quote

• She respected her husband in the same way as she respected the General Post Office, as something large, secure and fixed: and though she knew the small number of his talents she appreciated his abstract value as a male.

  James Joyce

  Husband, Small Numbers, Office

  James Joyce (2015). “Dubliners: Top 100 Classic Novels”, p.101, 谷月社

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The southern German has the imagination and emotionality to subscribe to a fanatic ideology, but he is ordinarily inhibited from excesses by his natural humaneness. The Prussian does not have the imagination to conceive in terms of abstract racial and political theories, but when he is told to do something, he does it.

  Arthur Seyss-Inquart

  Imagination, Southern, Political

  10 Copy quote

• I am convinced that abstract form, imagery, color, texture, and material convey meaning equal to or greater than words.

  Katherine McCoy

  Color, Texture, Form

  22 Copy quote

• A mathematician is an individual who calls himself a 'physicist' and does 'physics' and physical experiments with abstract concepts.

  Bill Gaede

  Doe, Physics, Individual

  4 Copy quote