Beauty is the main positive form of the aesthetic assimilation of reality, in which aesthetic ideal finds it direct expression.
Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race.
If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having.
The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries. Communication then is secondary: it is perpetuation which is important. For this only one good reader is necessary.
The art of living is based on rhythm - on give & take, ebb & flow, light & dark, life & death. By acceptance of all aspects of life, good & bad, right & wrong, yours & mine, the static, defensive life, which is what most people are cursed with, is converted into a dance, 'the dance of life,' metamorphosis.
Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such
To imagine a new world is to live it daily, each thought, each glance, each step, each gesture, killing and recreating, death always a step in advance. To spit on the past is not enough. To proclaim the future is not enough. One must act as if the past were dead and the future unrealizable.
If a man's fortune does not fit him, it is like the shoe in the story; if too large it trips him up, if too small it pinches him.
I'm estranged from my father and that relationship, as a young man, is incredibly important. It's probably responsible for the man I've become.
The blues is celebration, because when you take sorrow and turn it into music, you transform it.
The greatest fault of the day is the absence of stillness.