To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.
Aldous HuxleyRead
And so, resisting the temptation to wallow in artistic remorse, I prefer to leave both well and ill alone and to think about something else
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of not dwelling on past artistic failures or regrets; instead, it encourages focusing on new ideas and creations.
Aldous Huxley's quote suggests that artists should avoid the trap of regret and self-pity regarding their work. Instead of being consumed by the desire to revisit and judge past creations—whether successful or not—it's more fruitful to shift their attention towards new possibilities and ideas, allowing for ongoing innovation and creativity.
In practice
In an art therapy session, I encouraged participants to embrace this quote as they reflected on their past works.
To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
In the course of history many more people have died for their drink and their dope than have died for their religion or their country.
On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.
No man ever dared to manifest his boredom so insolently as does a Siamese tomcat when he yawns in the face of his amorously importunate wife.
The leech's kiss, the squid's embrace, The prurient ape's defiling touch: And do you like the human race? No, not much.
I can't understand these chaps who go round American universities explaining how they write poems: It's like going round explaining how you sleep with your wife.
When composing a verse let there not be a hair's breath separating your mind from what you write; composition of a poem must be done in an instant, like a woodcutter felling a huge tree or a swordsman leaping at a dangerous enemy.
As in creating some significant work the artist first experiences something akin to dream awareness that becomes clarified in the creative process itself, so we must first have a vision of the future sufficiently entrancing that it will sustain us in the transformation of the human project that is now in process.
Those of us who work in the arts know that depiction is not endorsement. If it was, no artist would be able to paint inhumane practices, no author could write about them, and no filmmaker could delve into the thorny subjects of our time.
There is a lot of extreme emotion in Korean film. It's because there are a lot of extremes in Korean society.
The reality of a poem is a very ghostly one. It suggests, it suggests, it suggests again.
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