Great Work Quotes - Page 3

• Any woman or man who would write the truth of their lives would write a great work. But no one has dared to write the truth of their lives.

  Isadora Duncan

  Writing, Men

  Isadora Duncan (2013). “My Life (Revised and Updated)”, p.33, W. W. Norton & Company

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• If you are not skillful enough to sketch a man jumping out of a window in the time it takes him to fall from the fourth storey to the ground, you will never be able to produce great works.

  Eugene Delacroix

  Fall, Men, Jumping

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• In all great works of fiction, regardless of the grim reality they present, there is an affirmation of life against the transience of that life, an essential defiance. This affirmation lies in the way the author takes control of reality by retelling it in his own way, thus creating a new world. Every great work of art, I would declare pompously, is a celebration, an act of insubordination against the betrayals, horrors and infidelities of life. The perfection and beauty of form rebels against the ugliness and shabbiness of the subject matter.

  Azar Nafisi

  Art, Betrayal, Lying

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• I know that an author must be brave enough to chop away clinging tentacles of good taste for the sake of a great work. But this is no great work, you see.

  Dorothy Parker

  Brave, Sake, Taste

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• What people regard as vanity—leaving great works, having children, acting in such a way as to prevent one's name from being forgotten—I regard as the highest expression of human dignity.

  Paulo Coelho

  Children, Vanity, Expression

  Paulo Coelho (1992). “The diary of a magus”, Harpercollins

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• When the bright angel dominates, out comes a great work of art, a Michelangelo David or a Beethoven symphony.

  Madeleine L'Engle

  Art, Angel, Symphony

  Madeleine L'Engle (2017). “A Severed Wasp: A Novel”, p.112, Open Road Media

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• Futurism today is led by science-fiction writers, by sociologists, by historians. Now, I have nothing against them. I'm sure they do great work. But they're not scientists. They're clueless.

  Michio Kaku

  Clueless, Fiction, Today

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• It's rare to find a consistently creative or insightful person who is also an angry person. They can't occupy the same space, and if your anger moves in, generosity and creativity often move out. It's difficult to use revenge or animus to fuel great work.

  Seth Godin

  Revenge, Moving, Anger

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• James Joyce buried himself in his great work. _Finnegan's Wake_ is his monument and his tombstone. A dead end.

  Edward Abbey

  Tombstone, Dead Ends, Buried

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• When I look at great works of art or listen to inspired music, I sense intimate portraits of the specific times in which they were created.

  Billy Joel

  Art, Portraits, Looks

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• Some of my best friends are Venture Capitalists, but let's face it, a hamster with Alzheimer's could make those kind of numbers. It's great work if you can get it.

  Scott Adams

  Alzheimer's, Numbers, My Best Friend

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• The Great Work now, as we move into a new millennium, is to carry out the transition from a period of human devastation of the Earth to a period when humans would be present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner.

  Thomas Berry

  Moving, Transition, Would Be

  Thomas Berry (2011). “The Great Work: Our Way into the Future”, p.3, Crown

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• Through our own creative experience we came to know that the real tradition in art is not housed only in museums and art galleries and in great works of art; it is innate in us and can be galvanized into activity by the power of creative endeavour in our own day, and in our own country, by our own creative individuals in the arts.

  Lawren Harris

  Country, Art, Real

  "The best of the Group of Seven".

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• I don't like the fact that no one has any imagination anymore. It doesn't pay to be a dreamer because all they really want you to do is answer the phone. Nobody wants you to think about anything new or use your brain or make anything interesting because everything important has already been made. America is over; it's done being brilliant.Everything genius has already been built, like all the great works of art have already been produced.

  Joe Meno

  Art, Thinking, Phones

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• That, of course, is what great works of imagination do for us: They make us a little restless, destabilize us, question our preconceived notions and formulas.

  Azar Nafisi

  Imagination, Littles, Restless

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• I think it's a shame when you come across young actors and musicians who haven't had the time to learn their craft. It doesn't matter if it's acting or music, you really have to learn how to do it from the bottom up because unless you have a great work ethic... fame is a terrible thing to have.

  Denis Leary

  Thinking, Work Ethic, Acting

  "The End of Rescue Me, But Not Denis Leary". Interview with Nancy Doyle Palmer, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 6, 2011.

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• If you have a great work in your head, nothing else thrives near it; all other thoughts are repelled, and the pleasure of life itself is for the time lost.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Pleasure, Lost, Thrive

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann (2014). “Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann”, p.39, Ravenio Books

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• To create great work, here's how you must spend your time:
  1% Inspiration
  9% Perspiration
  90% Justification

  George Lois

  Inspiration, Design, Justification

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• To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.

  Pearl S. Buck

  Work, Teaching, Learning

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

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• ...our enjoyment of the great works of literature depends more upon the depth of our sympathy than upon our understanding.

  Helen Keller

  Understanding, Depth, Literature

  Helen Keller (2016). “The Story of My Life”, p.63, Om Books International

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• If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

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• A perverse nature can be stimulated by anything. Any book can be used as a pornographic instrument, even a great work of literature if the mind that so uses it is off-balance. I once found a small boy masturbating in the presence of the Victorian steel-engraving in a family Bible.

  Anthony Burgess

  Sex, Book, Boys

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• Heaven is weary of the luxury of China. I shall remain in the wilderness of the north. I shall return to simplicity and moderations once again. As for the clothes I wear and the food I eat, I shall have the same as cowherds and grooms and I shall treat my soldiers as brothers. In a hundred battles I have been at the forefront and within seven years I have performed a great work, for in six directions of space all things are subject to one ruler.

  Genghis Khan

  Brother, Luxury, Clothes

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• Ministers of God's choosing are engaged in a great work. They are warring not merely against men, but Satan and his angels.

  Ellen G. White

  Angel, Men, Satan

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• I think all the knowledge and all the travels that I've done, I'm going to do a lot of great work in the future.

  Chris Tucker

  Thinking, Done

  "Chris Tucker wants to 'do something different'". Interview with Miki Turner, www.today.com. August 7, 2007.

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