100+ Abstract Quotes | InspiringQuotes.us

source: "Quantum Physics: From Basic Concepts to Applications". Honeywell-Nobel Laureate Lecture at the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad, India, September 15, 2008.

topic: Culture, Physics, Abstract, Quantum Physics

She was good at playing abstract confusion in the same way that a midget is good at being short.

- Clive James

source: "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Confusion, Way, Abstract, Midget

Tenderness can be just as abstract as insanity.

- David

topic: Insanity, Abstract, Tenderness

To me, a story can be both concrete and abstract, or a concrete story can hold abstractions. And abstractions are things that really can't be said so well with words.

- David Lynch

topic: Stories, Abstract, Said

Screenwriting is always about what people say or do, whereas good writing is about a thought process or an abstract image or an internal monologue, none of which works on screen.

- David Nicholls

topic: Writing, People, Abstract, Screenwriting, Thought Process

I always say that modernization is not an abstract thing; its a very specific task.

- Dmitry Medvedev

topic: Tasks, Abstract, Modernization

But nobody is visually naive any longer. We are cluttered with images, and only abstract art can bring us to the threshold of the divine.

- Dominique de Menil

topic: Art, Divine, Abstract, Abstract Art

Everything abstract is ultimately part of the concrete. Everything inanimate finally serves the living. That is why every activity dealing in abstraction stands in ultimate service to a living whole.

- Edith Stein

topic: Unity, Abstract, Concrete

No cause, no God, no abstract idea can justify the mass slaughter of innocents.

- Edward Said

source: Edward W. Said (2007). “From Oslo to Iraq and the Road Map: Essays”, p.117, Vintage

topic: Ideas, Causes, Abstract

The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract.

- Ellen Key

topic: Art, World, Abstract

The longer mathematics lives the more abstract - and therefore, possibly also the more practical - it becomes.

- Eric Temple Bell

source: Eric Temple Bell (1945). “Men of Mathematics”

topic: Mathematics, Abstract, Practicals

The role of the pastor is to embody the gospel. And of course to get it embodied, which you can only do with individuals, not in the abstract.

- Eugene H. Peterson

topic: Roles, Individual, Abstract

As Buddhist teachers often point out, knowledge, in the sense of prajÃ±a, is not knowledge about anything. There is no abstract knower of an experience that is separate from the experience itself.

- Francisco Varela

source: Eleanor Rosch, Evan Thompson, Francisco J. Varela (1992). “The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience”, p.26, MIT Press

topic: Teacher, Buddhist, Abstract

Abstract paintings must be as real as those created by the 16th century Italians.

- Frank Stella

topic: Real, Painting, Abstract, Abstract Painting

The complexity of software is an essential property, not an accidental one. Hence, descriptions of a software entity that abstract away its complexity often abstracts away its essence.

- Fred Brooks

topic: Essence, Essentials, Abstract

The mind is inherently embodied. Thought is mostly unconscious. Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.

- George Lakoff

source: George Lakoff, Mark Johnson (1999). “Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought”, p.3, Basic Books

topic: Mind, Abstract, Metaphorical

Americans have no capacity for abstract thought, and make bad coffee.

- Georges Clemenceau

source: "The Europeans". Book by Luigi Barzini, p. 225, 1984.

topic: Coffee, Abstract, Capacity

Nothing is more abstract than reality.

- Giorgio Morandi

source: Karen Wilkin, Giorgio Morandi (2007). “Giorgio Morandi: works, writings and interviews”, Poligrafa Ediciones Sa

topic: Reality, Abstract

I am dominated by one thing, an irresistible, burning attraction towards the abstract.

- Gustave Moreau

source: "Gustave Moreau". Book by Jean Paladilhe and Josbe Pierrep, translated by Bettina Wadia, p. 32, 1972.

topic: Passion, Burning, Abstract, Insignificance

There is plenty of courage among us for the abstract, but not for the concrete.

- Helen Keller

topic: Abstract, Concrete, Plenty

Talk with M. Hermite. He never evokes a concrete image, yet you soon perceive that the more abstract entities are to him like living creatures.

- Henri Poincare

topic: Life, Abstract, Evoke

Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched. Prefer the concrete word to the abstract. Prefer the single word to the circumlocution. Prefer the short word to the long. Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance.

- Henry Watson Fowler

source: Henry Watson Fowler, Francis George Fowler (1931). “The King's English”, Oxford University Press

topic: Long, Romance, Abstract, Short Words

Every concrete object has abstract value, is timeless in the dream parallel.

- Hilda Doolittle

source: Hilda Doolittle, Louis L. Martz (1986). “Collected Poems 1912-1944”, p.523, New Directions Publishing

topic: Dream, Timeless, Abstract

Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you....

- Jackson Pollock

source: Interview, New Yorker, 5 Aug. 1950

topic: Painting, Abstract, Expressionism, Abstract Painting, Painting Art

It [abstract art] should be enjoyed just as music is enjoyed after a while you may like it or you may not.

- Jackson Pollock

topic: Art, May, Abstract, Abstract Art

Film is abstract, not definite. It is a dream.

- Jacques Audiard

source: Interview With Jason Solomons, www.theguardian.com. December 5, 2009.

topic: Dream, Film, Abstract

Painting is... a richer language than words... Painting operates through signs which are not abstract and incorporeal like words. The signs of painting are much closer to the objects themselves.

- Jean Dubuffet

topic: Painting, Language, Abstract

I feel it's just some sort of game if it's just abstract.

- Jeffrey Smart

topic: Art, Games, Abstract

I wanted to be an abstract painter, but I was rotten at it.

- Jenny Holzer

topic: Rotten, Abstract, Painter

You're assisting the audience to understand; you're giving them a bridge or an access. And if you don't give them that, if you keep it more abstract, it's almost more pure. It's a cooler thing.

- Jim Henson

topic: Bridges, Giving, Abstract, Assisting

I guess my experience with some stuff is kind of abstract.

- Joaquin Phoenix

topic: Stuff, Kind, Abstract

All good art is abstract.

- John Newman

topic: Art, Abstract, Art Is, Good Art

Nowadays nobody bothers, and it is considered in slightly bad taste to even raise the question of God's existence. Matters of religion are like matters of sexual preference: they are not discussed in public, and even the abstract questions are discussed only by bores.

- John Searle

topic: Taste, Matter, Abstract

A trilogy is a pretty abstract notion. You can apply it to almost any three things.

- Jonathan Demme

source: "Neil Young drives a 1956 Crown Vic back in time in Jonathan Demme’s ‘Neil Young: Journeys’" by Chris Kensler, www.foxnews.com. June 18, 2012.

topic: Three, Abstract, Trilogies, Three Things

Abstract painters: redefine your perspectives. Think in terms of the whole, not simply its parts.

- Joshua L. Goldberg

topic: Thinking, Perspective, Abstract

I try to make concrete that which is abstract.

- Juan Gris

source: Response to questionnaire circulated to the Cubists by Amédée Ozenfant and Le Corbusier, editors of "L'Esprit Nouveau" # 5, February 1921.

topic: Trying, Abstract, Concrete

Theater is far superior to film in poetry, in abstract poetry.

- Julie Taymor

source: "Transforming the World through Art". Academy of Achievement Interview, June 3, 2006.

topic: Film, Abstract, Theater

Do not be deluded by the abstract word Freedom. Whose freedom? Not the freedom of one individual in relation to another, but freedom of Capital to crush the worker.

- Karl Marx

topic: Crush, Individual, Abstract

I am convinced that abstract form, imagery, color, texture, and material convey meaning equal to or greater than words.

- Katherine McCoy

topic: Color, Texture, Abstract

When I conform to truth, I do not conform to an abstract principle; I conform to the nature of God.

- Kenneth Lee Pike

topic: Principles, Conformity, Abstract

In every respect, fantasy is like doing abstract paintings.

- Lance Henriksen

source: "Lance Henriksen Interview SCREAM OF THE BANSHEE". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. March 26, 2011.

topic: Painting, Fantasy, Abstract, Abstract Painting

As I say, I as an abstract artist was active politically.

- Lee Krasner

topic: Artist, Abstract, Active

Of all the arts, music is really the most abstract.

- Leo Ornstein

topic: Art, Abstract, Music Is

You cannot be present in an abstract way. Presence is not about disappearing into nothingness. You can only be present with something that is actually here.

- Leonard Jacobson

topic: Awakening, Way, Abstract

The power to love what is purely abstract is given to few.

- Margot Asquith

topic: Abstract, Given

My art is not abstract, it lives and breathes

- Mark Rothko

topic: Art, Breathe, Abstract

All art is abstract, because art is an abstraction of the truth.

- Milford Zornes

topic: Art, Abstract, Art Is

Music, uniquely among the arts, is both completely abstract and profoundly emotional.

- Oliver Sacks

topic: Art, Emotional, Abstract

All religions are good 'in principle' - but unfortunately this abstract Good has only rarely prevented their practitioners from behaving like bastards.

- Paul Feyerabend

topic: Principles, Abstract

Hope isn't an abstract theory about where human aspirations end and the impossible begins; it's a never-ending experiment, continually expanding the boundaries of the possible.

- Paul Rogat Loeb

topic: Impossible, Boundaries, Abstract

All good art is abstract in its structure.

- Paul Strand

topic: Art, Abstract, Structure

In Calvinism and sectarianism man became more and more transformed into an abstract moral subject, as in Descartes he was considered an epistemological subject.

- Paul Tillich

topic: Men, Moral, Abstract, Calvinism, Sectarianism

I wore one of my Tanguy earrings and one made by Calder in order to show my impartiality between Surrealist and Abstract Art.

- Peggy Guggenheim

topic: Art, Order, Abstract, Impartiality

Whoever thought the immediate alternates with the immediate action is not an abstract painter.

- Pierre Alechinsky

topic: Action, Abstract, Immediate Action

His gaze brushed over her, abstract and hungry. "You burn so very brightly, you know" "Yeah," she muttered. "You said.

- Rachel Caine

topic: Hungry, Abstract, Said

I don't see Dior as something that could become mine. I see it as a dialogue with the women who wear it. I want to stay connected to them rather than to an abstract brand.

- Raf Simons

topic: Dior, Want, Abstract

I have been continuously aware that in painting, I am always dealing with... a relational structure. Which in turn makes permission 'to be abstract' no problem at all.

- Robert Motherwell

topic: Painting, Problem, Abstract

Abstract expressionism was the first American art that was filled with anger as well as beauty.

- Robert Motherwell

topic: Art, Firsts, Abstract, Abstract Expressionism

One of the most striking of abstract art's appearances is her nakedness, an art stripped bare.

- Robert Motherwell

topic: Art, Appearance, Abstract

You have to have the time to feel sorry for yourself in order to be a good abstract expressionist.

- Robert Rauschenberg

topic: Sorry, Order, Abstract, Feel Sorry For You

Oh abstractions are just abstract until they have an ache in them.

- Stephen Dunn

source: Stephen Dunn (1990). “Between Angels”, p.142, W. W. Norton & Company

topic: Abstract, Ache, Abstraction

Children in the abstract, had never appealed to me. They seemed to be loud creatures, often dripping some form of goo.

- Stephenie Meyer

topic: Children, Abstract, Loud

You make knowledge relevant to life and you make it important for children to learn things that will really relate to things going on in their lives, and not abstract.

- Talib Kweli

topic: Children, Important, Abstract

Know what your sin is and confess it; but do not imagine that you have approved yourself a penitent by confessing sin in the abstract.

- Theodore L. Cuyler

topic: Sin, Imagine, Abstract, Penitence

Our relationship with places is a close bond, intricate in nature, and not abstract, not remote at all: It's enveloping, almost a continuum with all we are and think.

- Tony Hiss

topic: Thinking, Abstract, Our Relationship, Continuum

Many attempts have been made by writers on art and poetry to define beauty in the abstract, to express it in the most general terms, to find some universal formula for it.

- Walter Pater

source: Walter Pater (2013). “The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry”, p.1, Courier Corporation

topic: Art, Abstract, Made

The more abstract is form, the more clear and direct its appeal.

- Wassily Kandinsky

source: Wassily Kandinsky (1914). “Concerning the Spiritual in Art”, p.32, Courier Corporation

topic: Abstract, Appeals, Form

The force that propels the human spirit on the clear way forward and upward is the abstract spirit.

- Wassily Kandinsky

topic: Way, Spirit, Abstract

Condemnation by category is the lowest form of hatred, for it is cold-hearted and abstract, lacking even the courage of a personal hatred,

- Wendell Berry

topic: Hatred, Cold Hearted, Abstract, Condemnation

Even an abstract form has to have a likeness.

- Willem de Kooning

topic: Abstract, Form

Even abstract shapes must have a likeness

- Willem de Kooning

source: Willem De Kooning, John Elderfield, Lauren Mahony (2011). “De Kooning: A Retrospective”, p.13, The Museum of Modern Art

topic: Shapes, Abstract

The more chaos there is, the more science holds on to abstract systems of control, and the more chaos is engendered.

- William Irwin Thompson

source: William Irwin Thompson (1987). “Gaia, a Way of Knowing: Political Implications of the New Biology”, Inner Traditions International

topic: Chaos, Abstract

I don't like [to] make a woman ... an abstract concept of the fashion. I don't like [to] say, "You must wear that." ... I am not a dictator.

- Yves Saint Laurent

topic: Fashion, Dictator, Abstract

I always just been a fan of the music... and the aesthetic only in an abstract sense.

- Colin Marston

source: Source: pitchfork.com

topic: Fans, Abstract, Aesthetic

The common willing of a common world is an eminently practical undertaking and not in the least abstract.

- Daniel Kemmis

topic: World, Common, Abstract, Undertakings

The inner and outer, the visible and invisible, the abstract and concrete - you've got to get the balance right (not that I do, but it's something to aim for).

- Elaine Equi

source: Source: www.guernicamag.com

topic: Balance, Invisible, Abstract

Everything you do is political, even if it's abstract. You're making a political statement even if it's unwittingly.

- Eric Drooker

topic: Political, Abstract, Ifs

Objective painting is not good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense.

- Georgia O'Keeffe

topic: Painting, Abstract, Objectives

The piece of music is nothing without the act of interpretation. That is the only way it can live, and it's a totally abstract thing.

- Helene Grimaud

source: Interview with Elijah Ho, www.thecounterpoints.com. January 29, 2014.

topic: Pieces, Way, Abstract

I don't know if embarrassed is the right word, about pop, but I prefer the abstract and the distorted in music. And I keep writing these proper melodies and harmonies, and they're the bits that get thrown out of the records! And I have quite a collection.

- Jason Pierce

source: Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

topic: Writing, Harmony, Abstract

We know how to work certain toys, and if you've got something in your head you know how to get in on tape, even if it's got an abstract sound to it. We are kind of producers as well as a band, so we're a self-contained unit. We can produce our own record as well as write it.

- Jez Williams

source: Source: pitchfork.com

topic: Writing, Kind, Abstract

We value apology in the abstract, but turn our backs on it in practice.

- John Kador

source: John Kador (2009). “Effective Apology: Mending Fences, Building Bridges, and Restoring Trust”, p.5, Berrett-Koehler Publishers

topic: Apology, Practice, Abstract

Touring was an abstract idea for me in the beginning. I didn't know where it was going to take me, but I knew that I wanted to go and play for lots of people. I always had that image in my mind. I had no idea what the touring experience was like, and how it was going to unfold, but I knew that I wanted to tour. Then it just started happening slowly started happening.

- Justin Nozuka

source: Source: mousertime.blogspot.com

topic: People, Mind, Abstract

I was never really seeking to play music. I knew I wanted to do it, but I think I wasn't seeking it out because it seemed so abstract to me.

- Kevin Morby

source: Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

topic: Thinking, Play, Abstract

With abstract work, I never was quite sure what it was that felt right about the painting, but I did know that I responded to it and I liked whatever it was offering me.

- Kurt Wagner

source: Source: pitchfork.com

topic: Offering, Painting, Abstract

... my whole existence is governed by abstract ideas.... the ideal must be preserved regardless of fact.

- Mary Corinna Putnam Jacobi

topic: Ideas, Facts, Abstract

I loathe when architects only analyze architecture in intellectual, nonvisual ways. I really love direct response, and that's very pop. I don't want to discuss abstract transparencies with a bunch of kooks.

- Peter Marino

topic: Intellectual, Architecture, Abstract

I like it when I can get really abstract.

- Richard McGuire

topic: Abstract, Get Real, I Can

If things are too similar, the dialogue is not very interesting. If you put in contrast, big and small, abstract and representational, you set up the possibility of a discourse.

- Michael Craig-Martin

source: Source: www.artzip.org

topic: Interesting, Possibility, Abstract, Very Interesting

I'm an abstract painter not just for myself, but because I really believe in abstraction.

- Brice Marden

topic: Believe, Abstract, Painter

Constructions of a-rhythmical forms, the clash between concrete and abstract forms... ...The acute angle is passionate and dynamic, expressing will and a penetrating force.

- Carlo Carra

source: "Piani plastici come espanzione sferica nello spazio" (March 1913), as quoted in "Futurism," Didier Ottinger (ed.), p. 146, 2008.

topic: Passionate, Construction, Abstract

I'm interested in producing truncated shapes in proportion to the frame and composition, shapes that are preferably luminous. I'm not interested in the full-figure. I want to abstract forms.

- Ralph Gibson

topic: Want, Shapes, Abstract

In the documentary impulse, two species of 'fact' exist side by side: one is coolly objective and the other is fraught, diverse and emotive; one figurative, the other abstract; one prosaic, the other poetic; one factual, the other romantic.

- Stuart Franklin

source: Source: www.guernicamag.com

topic: Poetic, Abstract, Impulse, Factual

Abstract propositions should never be discussed by a legislative body.

- James Buchanan

topic: Body, Abstract, Should

You know I dislike slavery; and you fully admit the abstract wrong of it.

- Abraham Lincoln

source: Abraham Lincoln (2009). “The Portable Abraham Lincoln”, p.80, Penguin

topic: Slavery, Abstract, Knows

A picture is not a window...an abstract refers to no reality but its own.

- Jean Cocteau

topic: Reality, Window, Abstract

The Analytical Engine is an embodying of the science of operations, constructed with peculiar reference to abstract number as the subject of those operations.

- Ada Lovelace

topic: Numbers, Peculiar, Abstract

I say a murder is abstract. You pull the trigger and after that you do not understand anything that happens.

- Jean-Paul Sartre

source: "Dirty Hands". Play by Jean-Paul Sartre, Act 5, sc. 2, 1948.

topic: Philosophical, Murder, Abstract

The universe is governed by science. But science tells us that we can't solve the equations, directly in the abstract.

- Stephen Hawking

source: "Stephen Hawking: 'There is no heaven; it's a fairy story'". Interview with Ian Sample, www.theguardian.com. May 15, 2011.

topic: Mathematical Equations, Abstract, Solve

A lot of people go to the movies wanting the movie to be about feelings, and it's really not about that. Or rather it's about feelings in the abstract.

- Steven Soderbergh

source: Source: therumpus.net

topic: People, Feelings, Abstract

I don't do abstract art because I don't find it as interesting as I do subjects and depictions.

- Claes Oldenburg

source: Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

topic: Art, Interesting, Abstract

When you're working with an object, you can put in almost anything you want, you can make it abstract.

- Claes Oldenburg

source: Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

topic: Want, Abstract, Objects

In abstract love of humanity one almost always only loves oneself.

- Fyodor Dostoevsky

topic: Humanity, Abstract, Humanitarianism, Love Oneself

There is something very pleasing about the principles of science and the rules of math, because they are so inevitable and so harmonious - in the abstract, anyway.

- Lydia Davis

source: Interview with Sarah Manguso, www.believermag.com. January, 2008.

topic: Math, Principles, Abstract

The abstract kills, the concrete saves.

- Sylvia Plath

source: Sylvia Plath (2013). “The Journals of Sylvia Plath”, p.287, Anchor

topic: Abstract, Concrete

Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings who represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it.

- Mahatma Gandhi

source: Mahatma Gandhi (1965). “Glorious Thoughts of Gandhi: Being a Treasury of about Ten Thousand Valuable and Inspiring Thougths of Mahatma Gandhi, Classified Under Four Hundred Subjects”

topic: Truth, Abstract, Prove

When individuals and nations have once got in their heads the abstract concept of full-blown liberty, there is nothing like it in its uncontrollable strength.

- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

source: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (2015). “Hegel's Philosophy of Mind”, p.397, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

topic: Liberty, Individual, Abstract, Uncontrollable

You've got a lot of time for abstract thought when you've got your hand stuck up a dead badger.

- Terry Pratchett

topic: Hands, Stuck Up, Abstract, Badgers

Relativity is inherently convergent, though convergent toward a plurality of centers of abstract truths.

- R. Buckminster Fuller

source: R. Buckminster Fuller (2009). “Ideas and Integrities: A Spontaneous Autobiographical Disclosure”, p.155, Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller

topic: Abstract, Relativity

In the abstract conception of universal wrong, all concrete responsibility vanishes.

- Theodor Adorno

source: Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.25, Verso

topic: Responsibility, Abstract, Concrete

None of the abstract concepts comes closer to fulfilled utopia than that of eternal peace.

- Theodor Adorno

source: Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.157, Verso

topic: Utopia, Abstract, Fulfilled, Eternal Peace

I wanted to make abstract films that are emotional, and I still do.

- George Lucas

source: "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Emotional, Film, Abstract

The smaller the instrument or more hidden it is such as electronics, the more esoteric it becomes and in my mind becomes boring watching someone go like this and that has no direct... It's just a complete abstract motion, not attach to any sound.

- Dan Deacon

source: Source: www.slate.com

topic: Mind, Boring, Abstract

Every three minutes a woman is being raped. Every eighteen seconds a woman is being beaten. There is nothing abstract about it. It is happening right now as I am speaking.

- Andrea Dworkin

topic: Three, Abstract, Minutes, Eighteen

I wear my pants on my upper torso to be abstract and different.

- Thom Yorke

topic: Different, Pants, Abstract, Torso

He who talks much about virtue in the abstract, begins to be suspected; it is shrewdly guessed that where there is great preaching there will be little almsgiving.

- Thomas Carlyle

source: Thomas Carlyle (1881). “Critical and Miscellaneous Essays: Collected and Republished”, p.7

topic: Littles, Virtue, Abstract, Almsgiving

All men in the abstract are just and good.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

source: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.100, Library of America

topic: Men, Goodness, Abstract

Freedom is not merely a word or an abstract theory, but the most effective instrument for advancing the welfare of man.

- John F. Kennedy

source: Kennedy, John F. (1962). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961”, p.548, Best Books on

topic: Men, Welfare, Abstract

It is often my nature to be abstract, hidden in plain sight, or nowhere at all.

- Gerard Way

source: "My Chemical Romance 'Can Never Die,' Gerard Way Says" by Gil Kaufman, www.mtv.com. March 25, 2013.

topic: Sight, Abstract, Plain Sight

Abstract pictures are fictive models, because they make visible a reality that we can neither see nor describe, but whose existence we can postulate.

- Gerhard Richter

source: FaceBook post by Gerhard Richter from Jun 07, 2013

topic: Reality, Abstract, Existence

All representations of a thing are inherently abstract.

- John Green

source: John Green (2012). “The Fault in Our Stars”, p.103, Penguin

topic: Abstract, Representation

But it is a pipe." "No, it's not," I said. It's a drawing of a pipe. Get it? All representations of a thing are inherently abstract. It's very clever.

- John Green

source: "Fictional characters: Frannie, Hazel Grace Lancaster". The Fault in Our Stars, www.imdb.com. 2014.

topic: Clever, Drawing, Abstract

In a strict sense photography can never be abstract, for the camera is incapable of synthetic integration.

- Ansel Adams

topic: Photography, Cameras, Abstract, Synthetic

Tenderness can be just as abstract as insanity.

- David Lynch

topic: Insanity, Abstract, Tenderness

Most people would have found it grotesque, but when you're in love nothing is so abstract or horrible that it can't be thought of as cute.

- David Sedaris

source: "April & Paris". www.newyorker.com. March 24, 2008.

topic: Cute, People, Abstract

Money alone is absolutely good, because it is not only a concrete satisfaction of one need in particular; it is an abstract satisfaction of all.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

source: Arthur Schopenhauer (2016). “The Wisdom of Life”, p.33, Cosimo Classics

topic: Needs, Satisfaction, Abstract

The truths of the Bible are never just abstract concepts; they're always related to real people.

- Joni Eareckson Tada

source: Source: www.biblegateway.com

topic: Real, People, Abstract

Abstract Expressionism was invented by New York drunks.

- Joni Mitchell

topic: New York, Artistic, Abstract, Expressionism, Abstract Expressionism

It is easier to take a position in the abstract than when it hits home.

- Dennis Prager

topic: Home, Abstract, Easier

Abstract knowledge is always useful, sooner or later.

- Robert A. Heinlein

topic: Abstract, Sooner Or Later

Pacifism, the preaching of peace in the abstract, is one of the means of duping the working class.

- Vladimir Lenin

source: "The Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. Groups Abroad". Sotsial-Demokrat, No. 40, March 29, 1915. Collected Works, Volume 21, pp. 158 - 164,

topic: Mean, Class, Abstract, Pacifism

One of the most striking aspects of abstract art's appearance is her nakedness, an art stripped bare.

- Robert Motherwell

source: "The Writings of Robert Motherwell".

topic: Art, Appearance, Abstract, Abstract Art

Time, that most abstract of humanity's homes.

- W. G. Sebald

topic: Home, Humanity, Abstract

The abstract, unreal freedom of the liberal intellect was really nothing more than childish disobedience, amplified into anarchy.

- Roger Scruton

source: Roger Scruton (2015). “Gentle Regrets: Thoughts from a Life”, p.48, Bloomsbury Publishing

topic: Anarchy, Abstract, Intellect

As a general habit and general tendency, I prefer not to bog a piece down with a great number of transitory, contemporary references, because in the end, I'm concerned, not in an abstract way, but an actual way, with creating a world which has a universality to it - even though what goes on is made up of texture and detail, contemporary detail.

- Mike Leigh

source: Source: www.avclub.com

topic: World, Habit, Abstract

To those who have exhausted politics, nothing remains but abstract thought.

- Honore de Balzac

topic: Exhausted, Abstract, Remains

Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.

- Edmund Burke

source: Speech 'On Conciliation with America' 22 March 1775

topic: Liberty, Abstract, Found

Wrong dressed out in pride, pomp, and circumstance has more attraction than abstract right.

- William Hazlitt

source: William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.979, Delphi Classics

topic: Pride, Abstract, Circumstances

fashion seems to exist for an abstract person who is not you or me.

- Elizabeth Bowen

source: Elizabeth Bowen (1950). “Collected Impressions”

topic: Fashion, Abstract, Persons

Exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms: and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism.

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

source: Aids to Reflection "Introductory Aphorisms" (1825)

topic: Men, Aphorism, Abstract

Detailed descriptions, abstract ambitions, relevant observations, your's and mine.

- Ellen Hopkins

topic: Ambition, Abstract, Description

Freedom is an abstract offshoot. You can't describe freedom. How can you describe it? I tried and I failed.

- Neil Young

topic: Abstract

Human intellect is incurably abstract.

- C. S. Lewis

source: C. S. Lewis (2014). “God in the Dock”, p.57, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

topic: Abstract, Intellect, Humans

Lenin thought abstract art was a conspiracy by the bourgeois to demoralize the proletariat. Yeah, socialist realism!

- Carl Andre

source: Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

topic: Art, Conspiracy, Abstract, Abstract Art

Abstraction is itself an abstract word and has no single meaning ... Every word in our language is abstract, because it represents something else.

- Eric Maisel

topic: Language, Abstract, Abstraction

As far as Marx's analysis of capitalism, there's a lot of very useful ideas in it, but he's developing an abstract model of 19th century capitalism. It's abstract and it's changed.

- Noam Chomsky

source: "Chomsky: "The Business Elites ... Are Instinctive Marxists"". Interview with Keane Bhatt, www.truth-out.org. November 19, 2010.

topic: Ideas, Analysis, Abstract

Voting is like alchemy - taking an abstract value and breathing life into it.

- Sharon Salzberg

source: FaceBook post by Sharon Salzberg from Sep 28, 2012

topic: Breathing, Voting, Abstract, Breathing Life

Food became, for dinner parties in the sixties, what abstract expressionism had been in the fifties.

- Nora Ephron

source: Nora Ephron (2011). “Wallflower at the Orgy”, p.7, Bantam

topic: Party, Dinner, Abstract, Abstract Expressionism, Dinner Party

I hate women, hate them generally, not in particular but in an abstract way. I hate them because one never really learns anything about them. They are inscrutable.

- Orson Welles

topic: Hate, Way, Abstract, Inscrutable

Oh, I hate the cheap severity of abstract ethics!

- Oscar Wilde

source: Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.192, Wordsworth Editions

topic: Hate, Ethics, Abstract, Severity

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