Patrick Swift famous quotes

I believe when you bring, say, a plant into a room, everything in that room changes in relation to it. This tension - tension is the only word for it - can be painted.
-- Patrick Swift

#Believe #Rooms #Plant

The development that produces great art is a moral and not an aesthetic development.
-- Patrick Swift

#Art #Development #Moral

All art is probably erotic in its ultimate character, but painting more than anything else is a purely nervous erotic activity.
-- Patrick Swift

#Art #Character #Painting

For to be contemporary is not necessarily to be part of any movement, to be included in the official representations of national and international art. History shows that it may well be the opposite. It may be that it is the odd, the personal, the curious, the simply honest, that at this moment, when everyone looks to the extreme and flamboyant, constitutes the most interesting manifestation of the spirit of art.
-- Patrick Swift

#Art #Opposites #Interesting

Art, if it is successful in the task of questioning reality, if it is good painting and not merely a performance of dexterity, will be an affirmation of God.
-- Patrick Swift

#Art #Successful #Reality

The painter celebrates life where he finds it. His morality is the morality of enjoyment, of the continuous development of his own taste without shame or fear. It is a sort of heroism.
-- Patrick Swift

#Development #Taste #Heroism

Life is more important than art - quantity is only important in that the amount of activity is greater not the number of works.
-- Patrick Swift

#Art #Numbers #Important

I'm still agnostic. But in the words of Elton Richards, I'm now a reverant agnostic. Which isn't an oxymoron, I swear. I now believe that whether or not there's a God, there is such a thing as sacredness. Life is sacred. The Sabbath can be a sacred day. Prayer can be a sacred ritual. There is something transcendent, beyond the everyday. It's possible that humans created this sacredness ourselves, but that doesn't take away from its power or importance.

I was a narrative historian, believing more and more as I matured that the first function of the historian was to answer the child's question, "What happened next?

Of all liars the most arrogant are biographers: those who would have us believe, having surveyed a few boxes full of letters, diaries, bank statements and photographs, that they can play at the recording angel and tell the whole truth about another human life.

I was a common man, and I will always remain a common man. No amount of stardom will ever consume my soul. Money comes, money goes. Fame comes, fame goes. I believe every human being is a celebrity in their own right.

Tell me what you think and then tell me what the really smart person in the room who disagrees with you thinks.

There's room for everyone at the rendezvous of victory.

There are many things my father taught me here in this room. He taught me: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

Learning is a plant that grows in all climes.

Confidence is a plant of slow growth ...

As a biologist, I can't think of myself as anything but an animal among animals and plant.