An abstract painting need in 50 years by no means look "abstract" any longer.
Marcel DuchampRead
What am I? Do I know? I am a man: quite simply, a 'breather.'
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the essence of human existence and self-awareness.
In this quote, Marcel Duchamp poses fundamental questions about identity and existence. By simplistically defining himself as a 'breather,' he reduces the complexities of being a human to the act of living and breathing, prompting a reflection on what it truly means to exist and the nature of self-awareness.
Themes
IdentityExistenceSelf-AwarenessPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophy class discussing existentialism, this quote can spark a conversation about the nature of human existence.
More from Marcel Duchamp
All quotes βAll this twaddle, the existence of God, atheism, determinism, liberation, societies, death, etc., are pieces of a chess game called language, and they are amusing only if one does not preoccupy oneself with 'winning or losing this game of chess.
Marcel DuchampRead
I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art - and much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its social position.
Marcel DuchampRead
I never finished the 'Large Glass' because, after working on it for eight years, I probably got interested in something else; also, I was tired. It may be that, subconsciously, I never intended to finish it because the word 'finish' implies an acceptance of traditional methods and all the paraphernalia that accompany them.
Marcel DuchampRead
It's a product of two poles - there's the pole of the one who makes the work, and the pole of the one who looks at it. I give the latter as much importance as the one who makes it.
Marcel DuchampRead
I became a librarian at the Sainte-Genevieve Library in Paris. I made this gesture to rid myself of a certain milieu, a certain attitude, to have a clean conscience, but also to make a living. I was twenty-five. I had been told that one must make a living, and I believed it.
Marcel DuchampRead
Similar quotes
But history is neither watchmaking nor cabinet construction. It is an endeavor toward better understanding.
Marc BlochRead
Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can't vent any anger against them. I only feel this appalling sadness. Somewhere, in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total facts of our existence. They were only taught to look one way when many ways exist.
Charles BukowskiRead
Besides, do any of us understand what we are doing? If we did, would we ever do it?
George Bernard ShawRead
Every psychic advance of man arises from the suffering of the soul.
Carl JungRead
No new horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace.
H. P. LovecraftRead
I alternate between thinking of the planet as home - dear and familiar stone hearth and garden - and as a hard land of exile in which we are all sojourners.
Annie DillardRead