In general I do not draw well with literary men -- not that I dislike them but I never know what to say to them after I have praised their last publication.
It is only through Art and through Art only that we can realize our perfection; Through Art and art only that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence.
Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great; Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it: what thou wouldst highly, That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, And yet wouldst wrongly win.
For one thing is needful: that a human being should attain satisfaction with himself, whether it be by means of this or that poetry or art; only then is a human being at all tolerable to behold. Whoever is dissatisfied with himself is constantly ready for revenge, and we others will be his victims, if only by having to endure his ugly sight.
We have lost the art of living, and in the most important science of all, the science of daily life, the science of behavior, we are complete ignoramuses. We have psychology instead.
Very early in my life I took the question of the relation of art to truth seriously: even now I stand in holy dread in the face of this discordance. My first book was devoted to it. The Birth of Tragedy believes in art on the background of another belief
I taught a lot of art history, especially Chinese, Japanese, and Indian. But the painting classes came back. The nudes came back. Not so much the still lifes. So now our department is the worst department, partly because it has the worst facilities.
How aware were photographers in the past of other visual arts? "No photographer of any distinction at all could approach his work without some awareness of what was going on in other visual media, and for that matter neither the painter nor the draughtsman could ignore photography."
All art is concerned with coming into being; for it is concerned neither with things that are, or come into being by necessity, nor with things that do so in accordance with nature.