I just do my work, and I work every day, and my ambition is just to do something better than I last did.
Patti SmithRead
An artist may have burdens the ordinary citizen doesn't know, but the ordinary citizen has burdens that many artists never even touch.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Artists and ordinary citizens face different challenges that are often unrecognized by each other.
This quote by Patti Smith highlights the unique struggles faced by both artists and ordinary citizens, suggesting that while artists deal with specific burdens tied to their creative endeavors and societal expectations, ordinary citizens navigate their own set of challenges that are often overlooked by those in the artistic community. It invites a deeper understanding and appreciation of the diverse experiences each group undergoes, emphasizing that empathy should extend across different walks of life.
Themes
ArtistBurdensOrdinary CitizenStrugglesEmpathy
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about mental health awareness, this quote can be used to highlight the different challenges faced by people in various professions.
More from Patti Smith
All quotes βMy small torrent of words dissipated into an elaborate sense of expanding and receding. It was my entrance into the radiance of imagination. This process was especially magnified within the fevers of influenza, measles, chickenpox, and mumps. I got them all and with each I was privileged with a new level of awareness. Lying deep within myself, the symmetry of a snowflake spinning above me, intensifying through my lids, I seized a most worthy souvenir, a shard of heavenβs kaleidoscope.
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For everything bad, there's a million really exciting things, whether it's someone puts out a really great book, there's a new movie, there's a new detective, the sky is unbelievably golden, or you have the best cup of coffee you ever had in your life.
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Eyeing the traffic circulating the lobby hung with bad art. Big invasive stuff unloaded on Stanley Bard in exchange for rent. The hotel is an energetic, desperate haven for scores of gifted hustling children from every rung of the ladder. Guitar bums and stoned-out beauties in Victorian dresses. Junkie poets, playwrights, broke-down filmmakers, and French actors. Everybody passing through here is somebody, if not in the outside world.
Patti SmithRead
I've always felt outside of things; I've always felt different.
Patti SmithRead
No matter what anybody thinks about any of them, every record I've done has been done with the same amount of care, anguish, pain, suffering, and joy.
Patti SmithRead
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