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Dilettantes Quotes

Browse 49 quotes about Dilettantes.

Dilettantes Quotes

“The bourgeois thinkers of the eighteenth century thus turned Aristotle's formula on its head: satisfactions which the Greek philosopher had identified with leisure were now transposed to the sphere of work, while tasks lacking in any financial reward were drained of all significance and left to the haphazard attentions of decadent dilettantes. It now seemed as impossible that one could be happy and unproductive as it had once seemed unlikely that one could work and be human.”

HumansLeftAttentionImpossibleCenturyTasksRewardsFinancialPhilosopherSatisfactionGreekSignificanceFormulasThinkerSpheresLeisureLackingUnlikelyBourgeoisDrainedGreek PhilosopherUnproductiveHaphazardDilettantes
Author:Alain de Botton
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“In order to write about the machine you have to know it, to live with it, to love it (or hate it). I think that true writing could be done on industrial subjects by people who work in industry, who are firmly linked with it. But ... and here is the opposite 'but', the technology of literary craftsmanship is itself a very fine and complex matter. Qualified specialists from industry prove themselves dilettantes in the field of literature. The needed synthesis is not yet in sight.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsInspirationalWritingArtMatterDoneHateOrderLiteratureTechnologySubjectsFieldsFineIndustryNeededProveMachinesOppositesSightComplexesLinkedQualifiedSpecialistsSynthesisCraftsmanshipDilettantes
Author:Yevgeny Zamyatin
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“Our hypothetical rich client might even have ordered a Pommard, because it was listed at a higher price...He would have never learned [about other wines]. A man who is rich in his adolescence is almost doomed to be a dilettante at table. This is not because all millionaires are stupid but because they are not impelled to experiment.”

MenMightRichStupidHigherTablesWineExperimentsClientsAdolescenceDoomedMillionaireHypotheticalDilettantes
Author:A. J. Liebling
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“Too often in the past, we have thought of the artist as an idler and dilettante and of the lover of arts as somehow sissy and effete. We have done both an injustice. The life of the artist is, in relation to his work, stern and lonely. He has labored hard, often amid deprivation, to perfect his skill. He has turned aside from quick success in order to strip his vision of everything secondary or cheapening. His working life is marked by intense application and intense discipline.”

ArtHardDonePastLife IsArtistOrderPerfectVisionLoversDisciplineSkillsLonelyRelationInjusticeIntensePresidentialApplicationDeprivationWorking LifeSissyIdlersDilettantes
Book:Creative America
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“I have a very, very secret drive to become a dilettante, without the pejorative overtones or the obligation to produce myself. There's so much to examine, so much to contemplate. I have enormous enthusiasm when I start a new project but then there's the meetings and the counter-meetings, the rehearsals, the struggles. You have to keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get your dreams realised.”

DreamSecretStruggleProduceProjectsMeetingsEnormousObligationEnthusiasmYour DreamsPushingContemplatingRehearsalRealisedNew ProjectsDilettantes
Author:Peter Greenaway
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“I’m no part time dilettante photographer, unlike the bartenders, shoe salesmen, floorwalkers plumbers, barbers, grocery clerks and chiropractors whose great hobby is their camera. All their friends rave about what wonderful pictures they take. If they’re so good, why don’t they take pictures full—time, for a living, and make floor walking, chiropractics, etc., their hobby? But everyone wants to play it safe. They’re afraid to give up their pay checks and their security they might miss a meal.”

IfsWantGivingPlayMightPayWonderfulSecurityMissingWalkingSafeGiving UpCamerasPhotographerShoesChecksMealsEtcHobbiesGroceriesSalesmanClerksPlumberPart TimeBartenderChiropracticBarbersRaveDilettantes
Book:Weegee: The Autobiography (Annotated)
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“Every artist was first an amateur.”

InspirationalFirstsArtMotivationalArtistMotivationGoalChallengesInspiringBusinessMastersSkillsArt IsEducationalMasteryGreat ArtFine ArtsProfessionalismSkillfulBeginnersMental StrengthArt And ArtistsInspirational ArtistInspirational ArtFacing ChallengesDilettantesSkills DevelopmentPersonal StrengthArt LoveArtist Love
Book:Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VIII: Letters and Social Aims
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