Out of the meaningless practical shapes of all that is living or lifeless Joined with the artist's eye, new life, new form, new colour. Out of the sea of sound the life of music, Out of the slimy mud of words, out of the sleet and hail of verbal imprecisions, Approximate thoughts and feelings, words that have taken the place of thoughts and feelings, There spring the perfect order of speech, and the beauty of incantation.
T. S. EliotRelated topics
beauty eye form incantation living mud music order perfect place sea slimy sound speech spring take wordsRelated quotes
As mineralogy constitutes a part of chemistry, it is clear that this arrangement [of minerals] must derive its principles from chemistry. The most perfect mode of arrangement would certainly be to allow bodies to follow each other according to the order of their electro-chemical properties, from the most electro-negative, oxygen, to the most electro-positive, potassium; and to place every compound body according to its most electro-positive ingredient.
Jons Jacob Berzelius
The human eye loves to rest upon wide expanses of pure colour: the moors in the purple heyday of heather, miles of green downland, and the sea when it lies calm and blue and boundless, all delight it; but to some none of these, lovely though they all are, can give the same satisfaction of spirit as acres upon acres of golden corn. There is both beauty and bread and the seeds of bread for future generations.
Flora Thompson
If there is one place on the face of the earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India. ... For more than 30 centuries, the tree of vision, with all its thousand branches and their millions of twigs, has sprung from this torrid land, the burning womb of the Gods. It renews itself tirelessly showing no signs of decay.
Romain Rolland
The beautiful is and remains beautiful though it arouse no emotion whatever, and though there be no one to look at it. In other words, although the beautiful exists for the gratification of an observer, it is independent of him. In this sense music, too, has no aim (object), and the mere fact that this particular art is so closely bound up with our feelings by no means justifies the assumption that its aesthetic principles depend on this union.
Eduard Hanslick
When I hear what we call music, it seems to me that someone is talking. And talking about his feelings, or about his ideas of relationships. But when I hear traffic, the sound of traffic - here on Sixth Avenue, for instance - I don't have the feeling that anyone is talking. I have the feeling that sound is acting. And I love the activity of sound... I don't need sound to talk to me.
John Cage