It is still not enough for language to have clarity and content... it must also have a goal and an imperative. Otherwise from language we descend to chatter, from chatter to babble and from babble to confusion.
Rene DaumalRead
Art has a double face, of expression and illusion, just like science has a double face: the reality of error and the phantom of truth.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Art and science both reveal dual aspects of reality, balancing expression with illusion and truth with error.
Rene Daumal's quote reflects the complex nature of both art and science. Art serves as a medium for expression, conveying emotions and ideas, yet it often blends with illusion, altering perceptions of reality. Similarly, science strives for truth but is constantly faced with errors and imperfections in understanding. Thus, both realms engage with the tension between what is real and what is illusionary.
Themes
ArtScienceExpressionIllusionTruthError
In practice
Example use cases
In an art class, this quote can be used to inspire students to explore the deeper meanings behind their creations.
More from Rene Daumal
All quotes βTruth is one, but error proliferates. Man tracks it down and cuts it up into little pieces hoping to turn it into grains of truth. But the ultimate atom will always essentially be an error, a miscalculation.
Rene DaumalRead
In the mythic tradition, the Mountain is the bond between Earth and Sky. Its solitary summit reaches the sphere of eternity, and its base spreads out in manifold foothills into the world of mortals. It is the way by which man can raise himself to the divine and by which the divine can reveal itself to man.
Rene DaumalRead
The door to the invisible must be visible.
Rene DaumalRead
I am dead because I have no desire,_x000D_ I have no desire because I think I possess,_x000D_ I think I possess because I do not try to give;_x000D_ Trying to give, we see that we have nothing;_x000D_ Seeing that we have nothing, we try to give ourselves,_x000D_ Trying to give ourselves, we see that we are nothing,_x000D_ Seeing that we are nothing, we desire to become,_x000D_ Desiring to become, we live.
Rene DaumalRead
Common experience is the gold reserve which confers an exchange value on the currency which words are; without this reserve of shared experiences, all our pronouncements are checks drawn on insufficient funds.
Rene DaumalRead
Similar quotes
A writer should not run around with a mirror for his countrymen; he should tell his society and his times things no one ever thought before.
Stanislaw LemRead
You don't go out and play Beethoven's 'Opus 111' without having rethought about it every time you play.
Daniel BarenboimRead
I tend to jot down moments, lines, interactions that don't really make any sense. I try and explain these scattered notes to my close friends, and they become more and more logical. I see screenwriting as a bit like a math equation which I have to solve.
Asghar FarhadiRead
Playwrights have texts, composers have scores, painters and sculptors have the residue of those activities, and dance is traditionally an ephemeral, effervescent, here-today-gone-tomorrow kind of thing.
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Realism should only be the means of expression of religious genius... or, at the other extreme, the artistic expressions of monkeys which are quite satisfied with mere imitation. In fact, art is never realistic though sometimes it is tempted to be. To be really realistic a description would have to be endless.
Albert CamusRead
I always say I write because I have questions, not because I have answers. It's true that you begin the conversation - that's the role of the artist. But it's not my job to tell us what to do next. I wish I had those tools.
Jacqueline WoodsonRead