An abstract painting need in 50 years by no means look "abstract" any longer.
Marcel DuchampRead
Words are the tools of 'to be' - of expression. They are completely built on the fact that you 'are,' and in order to express it, you have built a little alphabet, and you make your words from it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Words serve as essential tools for expressing one's identity and existence through language.
In this quote, Marcel Duchamp articulates the intrinsic relationship between words and the essence of being. He emphasizes that language is not just a collection of letters but a construction of meaning that reflects one's identity and existence. Through the creation of words from the alphabet, individuals express their unique experiences and understandings of the world around them.
Themes
WordsExpressionLanguageIdentityAlphabet
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about creativity in art, you might say, 'As Duchamp noted, words are the tools of expression that help us convey who we are.'
More from Marcel Duchamp
All quotes →All 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
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Leo TolstoyRead