The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for the rest of your life. And the most important thing is, it must be something you cannot possibly do.
Interpretation
Life's meaning comes from dedicating yourself to a significant but challenging task.
Henry Moore's quote emphasizes the idea that fulfillment in life stems from committing oneself to a purpose or task that is deeply meaningful and requires total devotion. The challenge lies in selecting a goal that is difficult, if not impossible, as this creates a journey of continuous growth and engagement throughout one's life, rather than simply aiming for achievable outcomes.
In practice
This quote can serve as inspiration in a graduation speech to encourage students to pursue their passions.
Recently I have been working in the country, where, carving in the open air, I find sculpture more natural than in a London studio, but it needs bigger dimensions. A large piece of stone or wood placed almost anywhere at random in a field, orchard, or garden, immediately looks right and inspiring.
I find in all the artists that I admire most a disturbing element, a distortion, giving evidence of a struggle . . . . In great art, this conflict is hidden, it is unresolved. All that is bursting with energy is disturbing - not perfect.
Between beauty of expression and power of expression there is a difference of function. The first aims at pleasing the senses, the second has a spiritual vitality which for me is more moving and goes deeper than the senses.
A work can have in it a pent-up energy, an intense life of its own, independent of the subject it may represent.
I have always liked drawing, when you draw you see things more intensely.
All art is an abstraction to some degree.
Things happen, people change,' is what Amanda said. For her that covered it. You wanted an explanation, and ending that would assign blame and dish up justice. You considered violence and you considered reconciliation . But what you are left with is a premonition of the way your life will fade behind you, like a book you have read too quickly, leaving a dwindling trail of images and emotions, until all you can remember is a name.
The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.
Nearly all our originality comes from the stamp that time impresses upon our sensibility.
Indeed it may be only by risking the incoherence of identity that connection is possible.
Men do not mirror themselves in running water - they mirror themselves in still water. Only what is still can still the stillness of other things.
When one has never heard a man's name in the course of one's life, it speaks volumes for him; he must be quite respectable.
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