Quotessence
Home / Topics / Mean Quotes

Mean Quotes

Browse 29529 quotes about Mean.

Related topics

Mean Quotes

“At the approach of danger two voices speak with equal force in the heart of man: one very reasonably tells the man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of avoiding it and the other, even more reasonable, says that it is too painful and harassing to think of the danger... better to turn aside from the painful subject till it has come, and to think of what is pleasant. In solitude a man generally yields to the first voice; in society to the second.”

“Very beautiful situations have developed using chaos as part of the enlightened approach. There is chaos of all kinds developing all the time... If you are trying to stop those situations, you are looking for external means of liberating yourself, another answer. But if we are able to look into the basic situation, then chaos is the inspiration, confusion is the inspiration.”

“What modern art means is that you have to keep finding new ways to express yourself, to express the problems, that there are no settled ways, no fixed approach. This is a painful situation, and modern art is about this painful situation of having no absolutely definite way of expressing yourself.”

“However much of time, labor, or other means it takes to establish a reputation, it frequently happens that it requires nearly as much to maintain it. One who has written a good book, is expected on all occasions to "talk like a book." Or, if one has achieved an act of heroism, he is expected to perform acts of heroism for the edification of all who approach him. There are people who can never believe they see a lion unless they hear him roar.”

“Read as little as possible of literary criticism - such things are either partisan opinions, which have become petrified and meaningless, hardened and empty of life, or else they are just clever word-games, in which one view wins today, and tomorrow the opposite view. Works of art are of an infinite solitude, and no means of approach is so useless as criticism.”

“You find very few critics who approach their job with a combination of information and enthusiasm and humility that makes for a good critic. But there is nothing wrong with critics as long as people don't pay any attention to them. I mean, nobody wants to put them out of a job and a good critic is not necessarily a dead critic. It's just that people take what a critic says as a fact rather than an opinion, and you have to know whether the opinion of the critic is informed or uninformed, intelligent of stupid -- but most people don't take the trouble.”