John Wesley Powell quotes

“The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself. The resources of the graphic art are taxed beyond their powers in attempting to portray its features. Language and illustration combined must fail.”
-- John Wesley Powell

Source : John Wesley Powell (2008). “Canyons of the Colorado”, p.394, Cosimo, Inc.

#Art Quotes #Illustration Quotes #Speech Quotes

“You cannot see the Grand Canyon in one view, as if it were a changeless spectacle from which a curtain might be lifted, but to see it you have to toil from month to month through its labyrinths.”
-- John Wesley Powell

Source : John Wesley Powell (2008). “Canyons of the Colorado”, p.397, Cosimo, Inc.

#Views Quotes #Labyrinth Quotes #Toil Quotes

“We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls ride over the river, we know not. Ah, well! we may conjecture many things.”
-- John Wesley Powell

Source : John Wesley Powell (2003). “The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons”, p.268, Penguin

#Running Quotes #Wall Quotes #Distance Quotes

“The elements that unite to make the Grand Canyon the most sublime spectacle in nature are multifarious and exceedingly diverse.”
-- John Wesley Powell

Source : John Wesley Powell (2008). “Canyons of the Colorado”, p.394, Cosimo, Inc.

#Sublime Quotes #Elements Quotes #Canyons Quotes

“The landscape everywhere, away from the river, is of rock - cliffs of rock; plateaus of rock; terraces of rock; crags of rock - ten thousand strangely carved forms.”
-- John Wesley Powell

Source : Smithsonian Institution, John Wesley Powell, Almon Harris Thompson, Elliott Coues, George Brown Goode (1875). “Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries: Explored in 1869, 1870, 1871, and 1872, Under the Direction of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution”, p.55

#Rocks Quotes #Rivers Quotes #Landscape Quotes

“The truth and the facts aren't necessarily the same thing. Telling the truth is the object of all art; facts are what the unimaginative have instead of ideas.”

Source : A. A. Gill (2008). “Paper view: the best of the Sunday Times television reviews”, Orion Pub Co

“Poetry leads us to the unstructured sources of our beings, to the unknown, and returns us to our rational, structured selves refreshed. Having once experienced the mystery, plenitude, contradiction, and composure of a work of art, we afterward have a built-in resistance to the slogans and propaganda of oversimplification that have often contributed to the destruction of human life. Poetry is a verbal means to a nonverbal source. It is a motion to no-motion, to the still point of contemplation and deep realization.”

“Only recently serious research into the relationship between photography and art has taken place. Why has it been so long in coming ? In some respects historical research is analogous with that of science. The bringing to light of factual material and the development of ideas is to a large extent cumulative. But when artists themselves were, from about 1910, beginning to tear down the bastions protecting Art in its ivory tower, questioning the idea of Art with a capital 'A', photography was inevitably to assume a new stature both in the eyes of artists and the public, too.”

“LAOCOON, n. A famous piece of antique scripture representing a priest of that name and his two sons in the folds of two enormous serpents. The skill and diligence with which the old man and lads support the serpents and keep them up to their work have been justly regarded as one of the noblest artistic illustrations of the mastery of human intelligence over brute inertia.”

“Now, my oral illustration be like clitoral stimulation to the female gender Ain't nothin' better Let me know when it's wet enough to enter”

“These illustrations suggest four general maxims[...]. The first is: remember that your motives are not always as altruistic as they seem to yourself. The second is: don't over-estimate your own merits. The third is: don't expect others to take as much interest in you as you do yourself. And the fourth is: don't imagine that most people give enough thought to you to have any special desire to persecute you.”

“I, schooled in misery, know many purifying rites, and I know where speech is proper and where silence.”

“Mr President, I have decided not to speak the entire speech which I have.”

“Without freedom of speech, there is no modern world, just a barbaric one.”

Source : "Ai Weiwei, Nursing Head Wound, Sharpens Criticism: Review" by Catherine Hickley, Bloomberg.com, October 14, 2009.

“I distrust speech therapy. Words are the language of lies and evasions. Music cannot lie. Music talks to the heart.”

Source : "Lanark: A Life in Four Books". Book by Alasdair Gray, 1981.