Masterpiece Quotes - Page 15

• I want to make my own life a masterpiece.

  Benito Mussolini

  Want, My Own, My Own Life

  "ITALY: Duce (1922-43)". content.time.com. August 2, 1943.

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• While clearly an impregnable masterpiece, Don Quixote suffers from one fairly serious flaw--that of outright unreadability.

  Martin Amis

  Suffering, Serious, Flaws

  Martin Amis (2001). “The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews, 1971-2000”, Vintage

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• Exhibitions of minority art are often intended to make the minority itself more aware of its collective experience. Reinforcing the common memory of miseries and triumphs will, it is expected, strengthen the unity of the group and its determination to achieve a better future. But emphasizing shared experience as opposed to the artist's consciousness of self (which includes his personal and unshared experience of masterpieces) brings to the fore the tension in the individual artist between being an artist and being a minority artist.

  Harold Rosenberg

  Art, Determination, Memories

  "Art and Other Serious Matters". Book by Harold Rosenberg. Chapter: "Being Outside", p. 273, 1985.

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• A disciple asked, "Who is a Master?" The Master replied, "Anyone to whom it is given to let go of the ego. Such a person's life is then a masterpiece.

  Anthony de Mello

  Letting Go, Ego, Life Is

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• I know the woman has no soul, I know The woman has no possibilities Of soul or mind or heart, but merely is The masterpiece of flesh: well, be it so. It is her flesh that I adore; I go Thirsting afresh to drain her empty kiss. I know she cannot love: it is not this My vanquished heart implores in overthrow. Tyrannously I crave, I crave alone, Her splendid body, Earth's most eloquent Music, divinest human harmony; Her body now a silent instrument, That 'neath my touch shall wake and make for me The strains I have but dreamed of, never known.

  Arthur Symons

  Women, Heart, Kissing

  Arthur Symons (1919). “Poems”

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• At one point Trudeau mentioned to me that the National Gallery wanted to buy a masterpiece by the great Italian painter Lotto, and it needed a million dollars from the Treasury Board. "Is that Lotto-Quebec or Lotto-Canada?" I joked, but I got the message, and the National Gallery got the painting.

  Jean Chretien

  Italian, Dollars, Boards

  "Straight From The Heart". Book by Jean Chrétien, 1985.

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• We know that Las Vegas is junk, but at the same time I think that exactly the same process and ultimately also, perhaps the same logic, attaches itself to or underlies our masterpieces. We live in an amazing era when in spite of an absence of masters there is an explosion of masterpieces.

  Rem Koolhaas

  Thinking, Vegas, Junk

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• I don't like masterpieces having one-night stands in collectors' homes between auctions.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Home, Night, Auctions

  1989 On quick-turnover profits on his work. In the NewYork Times,10 May.

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• Dissimulation was his masterpiece; in which he so much excelled that men were not ashamed of being deceived but twice by him.

  Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon

  Men, Deceit, Ashamed

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• Praxiteles borrowed the better elements of a hundred imperfect models in order to create a masterpiece.

  Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre

  Order, Elements, Imperfect

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• Literature is a vast forest and the masterpieces are the lakes, the towering trees or strange trees, the lovely, eloquent flowers, the hidden caves, but a forest is also made up of ordinary trees, patches of grass, puddles, clinging vines, mushrooms, and little wildflowers.

  Roberto Bolano

  Flower, Lakes, Mushrooms

  "2666: A Novel". Book by Roberto Bolaño, 2008.

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• The Phantom Menace is not a masterpiece, but it's an example of how imagination, craftsmanship, and technological bravura can fashion superior entertainment out of something that is far from flawless.

  James Berardinelli

  Fashion, Imagination, Entertainment

  "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)". A movie review at www.reelviews.net,

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• You want every movie to be a hit. But every painting isn’t a masterpiece.

  Will Ferrell

  Want, Painting

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• No one ever got ahead by going through the motions. You have to constantly be improving yourself. Make your life the masterpiece you want it to be.

  Queen Latifah

  Want, Improving Yourself, Improving

  Queen Latifah (2010). “Put on Your Crown: Life-Changing Moments on the Path to Queendom”, p.16, Hachette UK

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• composition is notation of distortion of what composers think they've heard before. Masterpieces are marvelous misquotations.

  Ned Rorem

  Thinking, Distortion, Composer

  Ned Rorem (2013). “The Paris Diary & The New York Diary: 1951–1961”, p.53, Open Road Media

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• Just two words: a masterpiece.

  Joe DiMaggio

  Yankees, Two, New York Yankees

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• Let me tell you, though: being the smartest boy in the world wasn’t easy. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want this. On the contrary, it was a huge burden. First, there was the task of keeping my brain perfectly protected. My cerebral cortex was a national treasure, a masterpiece of the Sistine Chapel of brains. This was not something that could be treated frivolously. If I could have locked it in a safe, I would have. Instead, I became obsessed with brain damage.

  A. J. Jacobs

  Boys, Brain, Tasks

  A. J. Jacobs (2004). “The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World”, p.17, Simon and Schuster

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• The noblest calling in the world is motherhood. True motherhood is the most beautiful of all arts, the greatest of all professions. She who can paint a masterpiece, or who can write a book that will influence millions, deserve the plaudits and admiration of mankind; but she who rears successfully a family of healthy, beautiful sons and daughters whose immortal souls will exert influence throughout the ages long after paintings shall have faded, and books and statues shall have decayed or been destroyed, deserves the highest honor that man can give, and the choicest blessings of God.

  David O. McKay

  Beautiful, Daughter, Art

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• Leaders don't rise to the pinnacle of success without developing the right set of attitudes and habits; they make every day a masterpiece.

  John C. Maxwell

  Inspirational, Leadership, Attitude

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• Although the works of the Creator may be in themselves all equally perfect, the animal is, as I see it, the most complete work of nature, and man is her masterpiece.

  Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

  God, Nature, Science

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• I have gotten everything from a one-page letter written in pencil to a 50-page computer generated masterpiece.

  Ron Pearson

  Technology, Letters, Pages

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• Live one day at a time and make it a masterpiece.

  Dale West

  Wisdom, Attitude, One Day At A Time

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• One of the grotesqueries of present-day American life is the amount of reasoning that goes into displaying the wisdom secreted in bad movies while proving that modern art is meaningless. They have put into practice the notion that a bad art work cleverly interpreted according to some obscure Method is more rewarding than a masterpiece wrapped in silence.

  Harold Rosenberg

  Art, Practice, Silence

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• He wants to live on through something - and in his case, his masterpiece is his son. All of us want that, and it gets more poignant as we get more anonymous in this world.

  Arthur Miller

  Father, Son, World

  "Death of a Salesman". Play by Arthur Miller, 1949.

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• In a longish life as a professional writer, I have heard a thousand masterpieces talked out over bars, restaurant tables and love seats. I have never seen one of them in print. Books must be written, not talked.

  Morris West

  Book, Writing, And Love

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