“The main reason for civilization is that life is more comfortable. In a way, houses are there to protect us from rain, cold, and heat; cars are there to overcome distances. Culture is the exception. Music, art, and all of the different cultural expressions are not going in that direction. They're not about comfort; they're about understanding each other.” WayArtDifferentReasonLife IsCultureHouseUnderstandingCarExpressionColdComfortCivilizationProtectComfortableRainOvercomingDistanceHeatExceptionUnderstanding Each Other Author:Pipilotti Rist
“The ability to laugh at life is right at the top, with love and communication, in the hierarchy of our needs. Humour has much to do with pain; it exaggerates the anxieties and absurdities we feel, so that we gain distance and through laughter, relief.” NeedsFeelsPainLife IsAbilityLaughingHumourCommunicationAnxietyLaughterGainsDistanceReliefAbsurdityHierarchyLaugh At LifeLove And Communication Author:Sara Davidson
“If life is not always poetical, it is at least metrical. Periodicity rules over the mental experience of man, according to the path of the orbit of his thoughts. Distances are not gauged, ellipses not measured, velocities not ascertained, times not known. Nevertheless, the recurrence is sure. What the mind suffered last week, or last year, it does not suffer now; but it will suffer again next week or next year.” IfsMenLifeYearsMindDoeLastsLife IsSufferingNextKnownPathWeekDistanceLast YearNeverthelessNext YearOrbitNext WeekVelocityRecurrencePeriodicity Book:The Essential Alice Meynell Collection Source: The Essential Alice Meynell Collection
“Our principles fix what our life stands for, our aims create the light our life is bathed in, and our rationality, both individual and coordinate, defines and symbolizes the distance we have come from mere animality. It is by these means that our lives come to more than what they instrumentally yield. And by meaning more, our lives yield more.” MeanLightLife IsIndividualPrinciplesOur LivesAimDistanceMereYieldRationalityCoordinates Book:The Nature of Rationality Source: The Nature of Rationality
“If you study Japanese art you see a man who is undoubtedly wise, philosophic and intelligent, who spends his time how? In studying the distance between the earth and the moon? No. In studying the policy of Bismarck? No. He studies a single blade of grass. But this blade of grass leads him to draw every plant and then the seasons, the wide aspects of the countryside, then animals, then the human figure. So he passes his life, and life is too short to do the whole.” IfsMenHumansArtWholeEarthLife IsAnimalStudyWiseFiguresPolicyMoonDrawsAspectSeasonsIntelligentDistancePlantWideGrassToo ShortBladesLife Is Too ShortCountrysidePhilosophicBlades Of GrassJapanese ArtBismarck Author:Vincent Van Gogh
“You can't know how weird your own life is until you get some distance on it. Everything seems mundane or boring or embarrassingly small.” KnowsSeemsLife IsKnow HowDistanceBoringMundane Author:Kyle Minor