Art Quote by Virginia Woolf

““Perhaps this is the strongest pleasure known to me. It is the rapture I get when in writing I seem to be discovering what belongs to what; making a scene come right; making a character come together. From this I reach what I might call a philosophy; at any rate it is a constant idea of mine; that behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern; that we—I mean all human beings—are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art. Hamlet or a Beethoven quartet is the truth about this vast mass that we call the world. But there is no Shakespeare, there is no Beethoven; certainly and emphatically there is no God; we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself.””

Virginia Woolf

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More by Virginia Woolf

Fatigue is the safest sleeping draught.

Virginia Woolf

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“The train slows and lengthens, as we approach London, the centre, and my heart draws out too, in fear, in exaltation. I am about to meet--what? What extraordinary adventure awaits me, among these mail vans, these porters, these swarms of people calling taxis? I feel insignificant, lost, but exultant. With a soft shock we stop. I will let the others…

Virginia Woolf

“Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword. On one side all is correct, definite, orderly; the paths are straight, the trees regular, the sun shaded; escorted by gentlemen, protected by policemen, wedded and buried by clergymen, she has only to walk demurely from cradle to grave and no one will touch a hair…

Virginia Woolf

“Other worshipful objects were content with worship; men, women, God, all let one kneel prostrate; but this form, were it only the shape of…

Virginia Woolf

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Why does Samuel Butler say, 'Wise men never say what they think of women'? Wise men never say anything else apparently.

Virginia Woolf

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“Sometimes he woke with a brain like lead; at others it was as if a thousand wax tapers were alight and people were throwing…

Virginia Woolf

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The extraordinary woman depends on the ordinary woman. It is only when we know what were the conditions of the average woman's life - the number of children, whether she had money of her own, if she had a room to herself, whether she had help bringing up her family, if she had servants, whether part of the housework was…

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A veil of insanity everywhere: Oh why I was born in this age? It is a terrible age.

Virginia Woolf

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Love ought to stop on both sides, don’t you think, simultaneously?’ He spoke without any stress on the words, so as not to wake…

Virginia Woolf

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“It is so vast an alleviation to be able to point for another to look at. And then not to talk. To follow the…

Virginia Woolf

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“What a vast fertility of pleasure books hold for me! (...) I think I could happily live here & read forever.”

Virginia Woolf

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“what a luxury to be alone once more,”

Virginia Woolf

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Explore all 1,872 Virginia Woolf 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 water they loved to drink. This good man, Noah, having seen that all his contemporaries had perished by this unpleasant drink, took a dislike to it; and God, to relieve his dryness, created the vine and…

Benjamin Franklin

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

Aeschylus

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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.

Erich Fromm

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

Ray Bradbury

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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 who make people stop and think, who push the form, who make you uncomfortable, who are laughable, well, they're the ones who get remembered." Idly, Jacob dug a hole in the snow with his shovel and…

Justina Chen Headley