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Kenneth Clark

Kenneth Clark Quotes

Psychologist

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Famous Kenneth Clark Quotes

“I believe order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology. I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven't changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must try to learn from history.”

ThinkingMenTryingYearsBelieveHumansTwoWholeLastsOrderI BelieveViolenceHavensCreationChangedIgnoranceThousandConsequenceDestructionChaosValuableIdeologyTriumphSpiteThousand YearsGentlenessVendetta
Author:Kenneth Clark
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“No nude, however abstract, should fail to arouse in the spectator some vestige of erotic feeling... The desire to grasp and be united with another human is so fundamental a part of our nature that our judgement of what is known as 'pure form' is inevitably influenced by it, and one of the difficulties of the nude as a subject for art is that these instincts cannot be hidden.”

ShouldHumansArtFeelingsFormDesireUnitedKnownFailingSubjectsPureArt IsDifficultyFundamentalsInstinctJudgementAbstractEroticSpectators
Book:The nude: a study in ideal form
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“Gargoyles were the complement to saints; Leonardo's caricatures were complementary to his untiring search for ideal beauty. And gargoyles were the expression of all the passions, the animal forces, the Caliban gruntings and groanings which are left in human nature when the divine has been poured away. Leonardo was less concerned than his Gothic predecessors with the ethereal parts of our nature, and so his caricatures, in their expression of passionate energy, merge imperceptibly into the heroic.”

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Author:Kenneth Clark
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“The nude gains its enduring value from the fact that it reconciles several contrary states. It takes the most sensual and immediately interesting object, the human body, and puts it out of reach of time and desire; it takes the most purely rational concept of which mankind is capable, mathematical order, and makes it a delight to the senses; and it takes the vague fears of the unknown and sweetens them by showing that the gods are like men and may be worshiped for their life-giving beauty rather than their death-dealing powers.”

MenGivingHumansMayStatesFactsBodyDesireValuesOrderInterestingMankindObjectsCapableConceptsGainsEndureDelightContrarySensesRationalSensualMathematicalVagueHuman BodyReconcileFear Of The Unknown
Author:Kenneth Clark
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“Ruskin's much-derided moral theory of art was part of an attempt to show that this human activity, which we value so highly, engaged the whole of human personality. His insistence on the sanctity of nature was part of an attempt to develop Goethe's intuition that form cannot be put together in the mind by an additive process, but is to be deduced from the laws of growth in living organisms, and their resistance to the elements.”

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Book:Selected Writings
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“The recognized achievements of some Negroes, despite rigid racial barriers, indicate that society by its prejudices may be depriving itself of valuable contributions from many others. It is now doubtful whether America can afford the luxury of such a waste of human resources.”

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Book:Prejudice and Your Child
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