Everything passes, and what remains of former times, what remains of life, is the spiritual. In everything we do, the claim of the Absolute is unchanging.
Paul KleeRead
A line is a dot that went for a walk.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the creative journey of transformation from simplicity to complexity.
Paul Klee's quote suggests that even the simplest forms can evolve into something more elaborate through the act of creation. A 'line', representing the basic element of drawing and design, becomes dynamic when it takes on a journey—symbolizing the artist's creative process that transforms simple ideas into rich, expressive artworks.
In practice
In a speech to aspiring artists emphasizing the beauty of the creative process.
Everything passes, and what remains of former times, what remains of life, is the spiritual. In everything we do, the claim of the Absolute is unchanging.
The painter should not paint what he sees, but what will be seen.
To emphasize only the beautiful seems to me to be like a mathematical system that only concerns itself with positive numbers.
You adapt yourself to the contents of the paintbox.
It is a great difficulty and a great necessity to have to start with the smallest.
All art is a memory of age-old things, dark things, whose fragments live on in the artist.
Writers have to keep on writing if they want to mature, like caterpillars endlessly chewing on leaves.
Poetry begins where language starts: in the shadows and accidents of one person’s life.
Billy Collins writes lovely poems. Limpid, gently and consistently startling, more serious than they seem, they describe all the worlds that are and were and some others besides.
Life is rich, always changing, always challenging, and we architects have the task of transmitting into wood, concrete, glass and steel, of transforming human aspirations into habitable and meaningful space.
I do not think writers or anybody would sit down and think they must write about some cause, or theme, or something. If they write about their own experiences, something true is going to emerge.
In a live performance, it's a collaboration with the audience; you ride the ebb and flow of the crowd's energy. On television, you don't have that.
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