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Art Quote by John Cage

“Artists talk a lot about freedom. So, recalling the expression…” quote by John Cage — Download Open image

“Artists talk a lot about freedom. So, recalling the expression "free as a bird," Morton Feldman went to a park one day and spent some time watching our feathered friends. When he came back, he said, "You know? They're not free: they're fighting over bits of food.”

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Art Artist Bird Expression Fighting Free As A Bird Freedom Friendship One day Parks Said Time watch

More by John Cage

If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that…

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It was at Harvard not quite forty years ago that I went into an anechoic [totally silent] chamber not expecting in that silent room…

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So somebody has talent? So what? Dime a dozen. And we're overpopulated. Actually we have more food than we have people and more art.…

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“...the important questions are answered by not liking only but disliking and accepting equally what one likes and dislikes. Otherwise there is no access…

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The material of music is sound and silence. Integrating these is composing.

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There is poetry as soon as we realize that we possess nothing.

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To see, one must go beyond the imiagination and for that one must stand absolutely still as though at the center of a leap.

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Value judgments are destructive to our proper business, which is curiosity and awareness.

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Our intention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake…

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There are some good people in it, but the orchestra as a whole is equivalent to a gang bent on destruction.

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Art's purpose is to sober and quiet the mind so that it is in accord with what happens.

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People who aren't artists often feel that artists are inspired. But if you work at your art you don't have time to be inspired.

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Explore all 186 John Cage quotes

More Art quotes

True works of art contain their own theory and give us the measurement according to which we should judge them.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Before Noah, men having only water to drink, could not find the truth. Accordingly...they became abominably wicked, and they were justly exterminated by the…

Benjamin Franklin

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“Hear the sum of the whole matter in the compass of one brief word — every art possessed by man comes from Prometheus.”

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I think most artists feel like they're outside society - no matter how many accolades they receive, or how much money is in your…

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The capacity to be puzzled is the premise of all creation, be it in art or in science.

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That's the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you.

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“So, really," continued Jacob as if this were perfectly normal to expound on art in these circumstances, "when you think about it, the artists…

Justina Chen Headley

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“There are two options in art; either to adopt philosophical life by dissecting art, or to write your own philosophical life and claim it…

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The house has to serve comfort. The work of art is revolutionary; the house is conservative.

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During human progress, every science is evolved out of its corresponding art.

Herbert Spencer

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In literature and art memory is a synonym for invention. It is the life-blood of imagination, which faints and dies when the veins are…

Robert Aris Willmott

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I think a business guy is different from an artist. They walk different paths. Artists create the best outputs when they're having fun. And…

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