Food, one assumes, provides nourishment; but Americans eat it fully aware that small amounts of poison have been added to improve its appearance and delay its putrefaction.
John CageRead
I am trying to check my habits of seeing, to counter them for the sake of greater freshness. I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I'm doing.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of altering one's perspective to experience life more vividly.
John Cage expresses a desire to change his habitual ways of observing the world in order to regain a sense of freshness and novelty in his experiences. By striving to be unfamiliar with his own actions and surroundings, he aims to break free from routine and engage more deeply with life, suggesting that a shift in perspective can lead to a more profound appreciation of everyday moments.
In practice
In a speech about creativity, one might quote this to encourage artists to seek new ways of seeing their work.
Food, one assumes, provides nourishment; but Americans eat it fully aware that small amounts of poison have been added to improve its appearance and delay its putrefaction.
Which is more musical: a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school?
There was a German philosopher who is very well known, his name was Immanuel Kant, and he said there are two things that donβt have to mean anything, one is music and the other is laughter. Donβt have to mean anything that is, in order to give us deep pleasure.
I remember loving sound before I ever took a music lesson. And so we make our lives by what we love.
I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.
People who aren't artists often feel that artists are inspired. But if you work at your art you don't have time to be inspired.
It's just what people do when they're getting old, when they're sick of themselves and their life; they think of money and take care of themselves.
In front of the photograph of my mother as a child, I tell myself: she is going to die: I shudder, like winnicott's psychotic patient, over a catastrophe which has already occurred. Whether or not the subject is already dead, every photograph is this catastrophe.
These wrinkles are nothing These gray hairs are nothing, This stomach which sags with old food, these bruised and swollen ankles, my darkening brain, they are nothing. I am the same boy my mother used to kiss.
How powerful is man! He is able to do all that God wishes him to do. He is able to accept all that God sends upon him.
Science is about explaining the world, and religion is about interpreting it. There shouldn't be any conflict.
To rest the case for equal treatment of national or racial minorities on the assumption that they do not differ from other men is implicitly to admit that factual inequality would justify unequal treatment, and the proof that some differences do, in fact, exist would not be long in forthcoming. It is of the essence of the demand for equality before the law that people should be treated alike in spite of the fact that they are different.
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