Quotessence
Home / Topics / Iconoclasm Quotes

Iconoclasm Quotes

Browse 23 quotes about Iconoclasm.

Iconoclasm Quotes

“As will be on display throughout this book, Zen has all along been an ironically "iconoclastic tradition." Some of its canonical stories include Bodhidharma (fifth–sixth centuries) telling Emperor Wu that he has gained no karmic merit from all of his meritorious activities, and that the most sacred truth is that that there is nothing sacred; depictions of Huineng (seventh century) tearing up the sutras; Linji (ninth century) encouraging his students to "kill the Buddha"; Ikkyū (fifteenth century) writing erotic poetry about his steamy love affair during the last decade of his life with a blind musician; and "an older woman of Hara" (seventeenth century) boldly retorting "Hey, you aren't enlightened yet!" after she told the eminent master Hakuin of her luminously enlightening experience and he tested her by saying that "Nothing can shine in your asshole. " Contemporary Zen Buddhists should feel free to carry on this irreverent and iconoclastic tradition of destroying false idols of Zen—but only insofar as they have sufficiently imbibed its true spirit and are doing so in a genuine effort to keep it alive and let it thrive.”

ZenIconoclasm
Book:Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism
Create image

“The professional iconoclast is such either because he does not understand the nature of images and rites, or because he does not trust the understanding of those who practice iconolatory or follow rites. call the other man an idolater or superstitious is, generally speaking, only a manner of asserting our own superiority. Idolatry is the misuse of symbols, a definition needing no further qualifications. The traditional philosophy has nothing to say against the use of symbols and rites ; though there is much that the most orthodox can have to say against their misuse. It may be emphasized that the danger of treating verbal formulae as absolutes is generally greater than that of misusing plastic images.”

ArtSinAbuseIdolsIdolatrySymbolismIconoclasm
Book:Christian & Oriental Philosophy of Art Formerly: "Why Exhibit Works of Art?"
Create image

“Tegularius was a willful, moody person who refused to fit into his society. Every so often he would display the liveliness of his intellect. When highly stimulated he could be entrancing; his mordant wit sparkled and he overwhelmed everyone with the audacity and richness of his sometimes somber inspirations. But basically he was incurable, for he did not want to be cured; he cared nothing for co-ordination and a place in the scheme of things. He loved nothing but his freedom, his perpetual student status, and preferred spending his whole life as the unpredictable and obstinate loner, the gifted fool and nihilist, to following the path of subordination to the hierarchy and thus attaining peace. He cared nothing for peace, had no regard for the hierarchy, hardly minded reproof and isolation. Certainly he was a most inconvenient and indigestible component in a community whose idea was harmony and orderliness. But because of this very troublesomeness and indigestibility he was, in the midst of such a limpid and prearranged little world, a constant source of vital unrest, a reproach, an admonition and warning, a spur to new, bold, forbidden, intrepid ideas, an unruly, stubborn sheep in the herd.”

FreedomIconoclasm
Book:The Glass Bead Game
Create image

“The "peace" which Islam seeks in its arts arises not from hatred of the image, but rather from an alchemical spiritualization or sublimation of the senses. All Islamic art implies an Image, but one that cannot be openly stated: the Image of the One. Islamic art asks us to use our Imagination in an active relation between art-object and viewer, to allow the object to evoke our own creative apperception of Oneness.”

Islamic QuotesSufi QuotesIconoclasmHakim BeyPeter Lamborn WilsonPeter Lamborn Wilson QuotesHakim Bey QuotesIslamic ArtSufi Art
Book:Scandal: Essays in Islamic Heresy
Create image

“The Devil answer'd: bray a fool in a morter with wheat, yet shall not his folly be beaten out of him; if Jesus Christ is the greatest man, you ought to love him in the greatest degree; now hear how he has given his sanction to the law of ten commandments: did he not mock at the sabbath, and so mock the sabbaths God? murder those who were murder'd because of him? turn away the law from the woman taken in adultery? steal the labor of others to support him? bear false witness when he omitted making a defense before Pilate? covet when he pray'd for his disciples, and when he bid them shake off the dust of their feet against such as refused to lodge them? I tell you, no virtue can exist without breaking these ten commandments; Jesus was all virtue, and acted from impulse, not from rules.”

ReligionHeresyAmusingSophistryIconoclasmIntuitive Ethics
Book:The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Create image

“Obviously, a rigid, blinkered, absolutist world view is the easiest to keep hold of, whereas the fluid, uncertain, metamorphic picture I've always carried about is rather more vulnerable. Yet I must cling with all my might to … my own soul; must hold on to its mischievous, iconoclastic, out-of-step clown-instincts, no matter how great the storm. And if that plunges me into contradiction and paradox, so be it; I've lived in that messy ocean all my life. I've fished in it for my art. This turbulent sea was the sea outside my bedroom window in Bombay. It is the sea by which I was born, and which I carry within me wherever I go.”

LifeWritingArtSoulCreativityInstinctVulnerabilityParadoxSelf DeterminationSelf KnowledgeRigidityIconoclasmWorld ViewsSources Of Inspiration
Author:Salman Rushdie
Create image

“لا أعرف سبب كون النساء البسيطات أكثر تديناً من غيرهن، بل إن النساء هن الخزان الرئيسي لأشكال التدين البدائية، وقد كن السبب الرئيسي في انتصار بيزنطة على بدعة محطمي الأيقونات، وفي كل الضرائح الدينية تُشاهد النساء أكثر من غيرهن، وتمتلئ الكنائس في الصباحات الباكرة بالنساء المسنات على الدوام.”

ReligionWomenReligiousGenderShrinesChurchesIconoclasm
Book:صراع الأقنعة
Create image

“Artists are agents of chaos. It is the artists job to encourage entropy, to promote chaos. Idols must be killed, icons crushed, beliefs shattered. It is the artists job to encourage legitimate, unadulterated, raw thought and emotion. Art that does nothing new, that simply fills an established role, is not art. It is a product. A stale, stagnant product of a disgustingly mundane process that has been done so much it is assumed mandatory. Little different than feces. The last thing the world needs is to get shittier.”

ArtChaosArtistsEntropyIconoclasmFecesAnartism
Author:Jonathan Culver
Create image

“To its devotees the bowtie suggests iconoclasm of an Old World sort, a fusty adherence to a contrarian point of view. The bowtie hints at intellectualism, real or feigned, and sometimes suggests technical acumen, perhaps because it is so hard to tie. BowTies are worn by magicians, country doctors, lawyers and professors and by people hoping to look like the above. But perhaps most of all, wearing a bow tie is a way of broadcasting an aggressive lack of concern for what other people think.”

PeopleThinkingWorldWayLooksRealCountrySometimesHardViewsConcernDoctorsPoint Of ViewLawyerTiesProfessorsAggressiveBowsWornMagicianHintsIntellectualismOld WorldBroadcastingDevoteeAdherenceAcumenBow TieIconoclasm
Author:Warren St. John
Create image

“It would scarcely be destruction," he replied gently. "Let us call it iconoclasm, the swallowing of formulas, which has always had its full retinue of idealists. And you do not want a Napoleon . All that is needed is direction, which could be given by men of far lower gifts than a Bonaparte. In a word, you want a Power-House, and then the age of miracles will begin.”

MenWantAgeHouseGivenNeededDestructionMiracleFormulasIdealistSwallowingBonaparteIconoclasm
Book:The Complete Works of John Buchan (Unabridged): Thriller Classics, Spy Novels, Supernatural Tales, Short Stories, Poetry, Historical Works, The Great War Writings, Essays, Biographies & Memoirs – All in One Volume
Create image

“The appeal of science fiction has always been its iconoclasm . . . But in order to be an iconoclast, an author must be more than merely aware of the idol he wishes to destroy. He must be intimate with it and understand it in all its aspects. This means that he must have devoted serious thought to it, and have beliefs of his own which will stand up in the place of the broken idol. In other words, any child can complain, but it takes an adult to clash with accepted beliefs . . . an adult with ideas.”

MeanChildrenIdeasOrderBeliefWishFictionSeriousBrokenAdultsAspectScience FictionComplainingAcceptedAppealsIntimateIdolsDevotedClashIconoclasm
Author:Alfred Bester
Create image

“To one degree or another, everybody is connected to the Mystery, and everybody secretly yearns to expand the connection. That requires expanding the soul. These things can enlarge the soul: laughter, danger, imagination, meditation, wild nature, passion, compassion, psychedelics, beauty, iconoclasm, and driving around in the rain with the top down. These things can diminish it: fear, bitterness, blandness, trendiness, egotism, violence, corruption, ignorance, grasping, shining, and eating ketchup on cottage cheese.”

SoulSpiritPassionImaginationCompassionMeditationViolenceMysteryDangerIgnoranceDegreesEatingLaughterRainConnectionsShiningCorruptionConnectedDrivingBitternessCheeseDiminishExpandingEgotismGraspingCottagesTop DownKetchupIconoclasm
Author:Tom Robbins
Create image