“In order to correctly define art, it is necessary, first of all, to cease to consider it as a means to pleasure and consider it as one of the conditions of human life. ...Reflecting on it in this way, we cannot fail to observe that art is one of the means of effective communication between people.” PeopleWayFirstsHumansMeanArtOrderPleasureFailingConditionsCommunicationArt IsCeaseHuman LifeReflectingFine ArtsEffective Communication Author:Leo Tolstoy
“Abridge your hopes in proportion to the shortness of the span of human life; for while we converse, the hours, as if envious of our pleasure, fly away: enjoy, therefore, the present time, and trust not too much to what to-morrow may produce.” IfsHumansMayEnjoyHoursPleasureToo MuchProduceHuman LifeProportionEnviousMorrowConversesPresent TimeFly AwayShortness Author:Horace
“If we confine ourselves to a general and distant reflection on the ills of human life, that can have no effect to prepare us for them. If by close and intense meditation we render them present and intimate to us, that is the true secret for poisoning all our pleasures, and rendering us perpetually miserable.” IfsLifeHumansDeathEvilPleasureSecretMeditationEffectsReflectionIntenseMiserableHuman LifeIntimateLife DeathPoisoningRenderingMiserable Life Book:Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated) Source: Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)
“Time is the most important thing in human life, for what is pleasure after the departure of time? and the most consolatory, since pain, when pain has passed, is nothing. Time is the wheel-track in which we roll on towards eternity, conducting us to the Incomprehensible. In its progress there is a ripening power, and it ripens us the more, and the more powerfully, when we duly estimate it. Listen to its voice, do not waste it, but regard it as the highest finite good, in which all finite things are resolved.” LifeHumansImportantPainVoicePleasureProgressWasteHighestEternityRegardImportant ThingsTrackHuman LifeWheelsFiniteDepartureConductingRipening Author:Alexander von Humboldt
“The garden reconciles human art and wild nature, hard work and deep pleasure, spiritual practice and the material world. It is a magical place because it is not divided. The many divisions and polarizations that terrorize a disenchanted world find peaceful accord among mossy rock walls, rough stone paths, and trimmed bushes. Maybe a garden sometimes seems fragile, for all its earth and labor, because it achieves such an extraordinary delicate balance of nature and human life, naturalness and artificiality. It has its own liminality, its point of balance between great extremes.” WorldLifeHumansArtSometimesHardSeemsEarthSpiritualPleasurePracticePathAchieveRocksMaterialsHard WorkWallBalanceGardenLaborStonesExtraordinaryExtremesPeacefulHuman LifeRoughDivisionDividedFragileDelicateAccordReconcileFinding PeaceSpiritual PracticeMaterial WorldPolarizationArtificialityMagical PlacesDisenchanted Author:Thomas Moore