Expression Quotes - Page 36

• It's just someone has labelled us as having a different label to do what you do. I find that labels are the worst thing in the world for artistic expression.

  Ornette Coleman

  Different, Labels, World

  Interview with Michael Jarrett, www2.york.psu.edu. November 8, 1987.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• I realize that we all do express ourselves, but those who express that which is always being done are those whose thinking is almost in every way in accord with everyone else. Expression on this basis has become dull to those who wish to think for themselves.

  Harry Callahan

  Photography, Thinking, Wish

  4 Copy quote

• For the stage displays the first vigorous expression, as the natural thing and without conspicuous restraint, of private individuality.

  Lascelles Abercrombie

  Individuality, Firsts, Individualism

  4 Copy quote

• That was when I cut my arms with a razor blade as a means of creative expression. I only did it lightly, just grazing the skin, to see the way the blood would bleed out, to make myself look tougher. Not like some of those kids who keep going deeper and deeper, wondering what they look like down to the bone, because it's a world that's so close and yet so far and so dangerous and so much their own. The only world that is their own.

  Francesca Lia Block

  Mean, Kids, Cutting

  4 Copy quote

• Masturbation is not only an expression of self-regard: it is also the natural emotional outlet of those who...have already accepted as inevitable the wide gulf between their real futures and the expectations of their fantasies.

  Quentin Crisp

  Real, Emotional, Self

  10 Copy quote

• I remain persuaded of the inevitable and necessary complementarity of man and woman. Love, imperfect as it may be in its content and expression, remains the natural link between these two beings. To love one another! If only each partner could move sincerely towards the other! If each could only melt into the other! If each would only accept the other's qualities instead of listing his faults! If each could only correct bad habits without harping on about them!

  Mariama Bâ

  Moving, Men, Two

  Mariama Bâ (1989). “So Long a Letter”, p.88, Heinemann

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• Solitude is the surest nurse of all prurient passions, and a girl in the hurry of preparation, or tumult of gaiety, has neither inclination nor leisure to let tender expressions soften or sink into her heart. The ball, the show, are not the dangerous places: no, 'tis the private friend, the kind consoler, the companion of the easy vacant hour, whose compliance with her opinions can flatter her vanity, and whose conversation can sooth, without ever stretching her mind, that is the lover to be feared: he who buzzes in her ear at court, or at the opera, must be contented to buzz in vain.

  Samuel Johnson

  Girl, Passion, Heart

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1859). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.256

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A tragic mistake that is often made is to assume that the will of God is bound to be something very dull and uninviting, if not positively unpleasant. Consciously or not some persons look upon God as a hard taskmaster, or a severe parent. . . . The truth is that the will of God for us always means greater freedom, greater self-expression, newer and brighter experience, wider opportunity of service to others-life more abundant.

  Emmet Fox

  God, Mistake, Mean

  115 Copy quote

• When he sees little kids sitting in the backseat of cars, in those little car seats that have steering wheels, with grim expressions of concentration on their faces, clearly convinced that their efforts are causing the car to do whatever it is doing, he thinks of himself and his relationship with God: God who drives along silently, gently amused, in the real driver's seat.

  Anne Lamott

  God, Real, Kids

  Anne Lamott (1994). “Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year”, Fawcett

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I navigate through the world with the excitement and determination of a child. That's why I'm an artist. I'd die without an outlet for expression. Unfortunately, more often than not, that childlike energy is the maturity level I bring to many circumstances.

  Kurt Sutter

  Determination, Children, Artist

  11 Copy quote

• There is no separation between us and God-we are divine expressions of the creative principle...there can be no real lack or scarcity; there is nothing we have to try to achieve or attract; we contain the potential for everything within us.

  Shakti Gawain

  God, Real, Creative

  9 Copy quote

• When a language begins to teem with books, it is tending to refinement; as those who undertake to teach others must have undergone some labour in improving themselves, they set a proportionate value on their own thoughts, and wish to enforce them by efficacious expressions; speech becomes embodied and permanent; different modes and phrases are compared, and the best obtains an establishment. By degrees one age improves upon another.

  Samuel Johnson

  Book, Wish, Age

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An essay on his life and genius”, p.349

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The preservation of parks, wilderness, and wildlife has also aided liberty by keeping alive the 19th century sense of adventure and awe with which our forefathers greeted the American West. Many laws protecting environmental quality have promoted liberty by securing property against the destructive trespass of pollution. In our own time, the nearly universal appreciation of these preserved landscapes, restored waters, and cleaner air through outdoor recreation is a modern expression of our freedom and leisure to enjoy the wonderful life that generations past have built for us.

  Ronald Reagan

  Appreciation, Adventure, Past

  9 Copy quote

• Just as the natural environment depends on biodiversity, so the human environment depends on cultural diversity, because no one civilization encompasses all the spiritual, ethical and artistic expressions of mankind.

  Jonathan Sacks

  Spiritual, Civilization, Diversity

  9 Copy quote

• Health is not the mere absence of disease, it is the dynamic expression of life.

  Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

  Disease, Absence, Mere

  4 Copy quote

• Essentially, the life of expression is the ongoing journey of how we heal each other... for by telling our stories and listening to the stories of others, we let out who we are and find ourselves in each other, and find that we are more together than alone.

  Mark Nepo

  Journey, Listening, Together

  4 Copy quote

• I do not share the pessimism of the age about the novel. They are one of our greatest spiritual, aesthetic and intellectual inventions. As a species it is story that distinguishes us, and one of the supreme expressions of story is the novel. Novels are not content. Nor are they are a mirror to life or an explanation of life or a guide to life. Novels are life, or they are nothing.

  Richard Flanagan

  Spiritual, Mirrors, Intellectual

  "Man Booker prize-winner Richard Flanagan's acceptance speech in full" by Richard Flanagan, www.theguardian.com. October 14, 2014.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Marriage can be a religious thing. It can also be a secular thing. And guess what? Not everyone in the world is of the same religion. Preventing gay people from getting married is not an expression of religious freedom. It's an expression of religious oppression.

  Hank Green

  Religious, Gay, People

  5 Copy quote

• The creative process must be explored... as the expression of the normal people in the act of actualizing themselves.

  Rollo May

  Creativity, People, Creative

  Rollo May (1994). “The Courage to Create”, p.40, W. W. Norton & Company

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• By the time we hit the streets they were silent and closed in on us, and they had assumed the Nonchalant Look, an expression that said, I am not a nurse escorting six lunatics to the ice cream parlor. But they were, and we were their six lunatics, so we behaved like lunatics.

  Susanna Kaysen

  Ice Cream, Nurse, Looks

  10 Copy quote

• It will appeal to girls who are confident and have a strong personal expression of style and identity in the way that they dress and what this says about themselves.

  Agyness Deyn

  Girl, Strong, Style

  "See Agyness Deyn's Second Dr. Martens Collection and Campaign" by Tommye Fitzpatrick, www.elle.com. February 4, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Whether your purpose for writing is artistic expression, communication with friends and family, the healing of the inner life, or achieving public recognition for your art - the foundation is the same: the claiming of yourself as an artist/writer and the strengthening of your writing voice through practice, study, and helpful response from other writers.

  Pat Schneider

  Art, Communication, Healing

  Pat Schneider (2003). “Writing Alone and with Others”, p.22, Oxford University Press

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is raining and you can hear the pattern of the drops. You can hear it with your ears, or you can hear it out of that deep silence. If you hear it with complete silence of the mind, then the beauty of it is such that cannot be put into words or onto canvas, because that beauty is something beyond self-expression .

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Rain, Self, Silence

  12 Copy quote

• It is expressions of affection rather than money and power that attract real friends.

  Dalai Lama

  Real, Affection, Money And Power

  8 Copy quote

• Without our fully realizing it, flowers would become for us an expression in form of that which is most high, most sacred, and ultimately formless within ourselves. Flowers, more fleeting, more ethereal, and more delicate than the plants out of which they emerged, would become like messengers from another realm, like a bridge between the world of physical forms and the formless.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Flower, Bridges, Fleeting

  Eckhart Tolle (2006). “A New Earth (Oprah #61): Awakening to Your Life's Purpose”, p.18, Penguin

  6 Copy quote

  Show source