Wednesday 30 June 2021

Quotes 156: Buckminster Fuller

"Whatever humans have learned had to be learned as a consequence only of trial and error experience. Humans have learned only through mistakes." 

–– Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983), American architect, designer, inventor, futurist and writer

via Book of Commonplace 2005-2006, p. 184.

Tuesday 29 June 2021

Quotes 155: Albert Einstein

"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable for forming such opinions." 

–– Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born American theoretical physicist 

via Book of Commonplace 2005-2006, p. 183.

Monday 28 June 2021

Quotes 154: Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The ancestor of every action is a thought." 

–– Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American philosopher and writer

via Book of Commonplace 2005-2006, p. 182.

Sunday 27 June 2021

Quotes 153: John Ruskin

"Every increased possession loads us with new weariness." 

–– John Ruskin (1819-1900), British art critic, writer, and philosopher 

via Book of Commonplace 2005-2006, p. 178.

Saturday 26 June 2021

Quotes 152: Alan Fletcher

"Every discovery by definition is unpredictable. If it were predictable it would not be a discovery. Creativity exposes unpredictable things to be discovered." 

–– Alan Fletcher (1931-2006), British graphic designer and writer

Source: Alan Fletcher. The Art of Looking Sideways. London: Phaidon Press, 2001; p.31.

via Book of Commonplace 2005-2006, p. 171.

Friday 25 June 2021

Quotes 151: Lynne Twist

"The life you live is the legacy you leave." 

–– Lynne Twist, American writer and public speaker

Source: Lynne Twist. The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2003; p. 225.

via Book of Commonplace 2005-2006, p. 154.

Thursday 24 June 2021

Quotes 150: Lilla Watson

"If you are coming to help me, you are wasting your time, but if you are coming because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." 

–– Lilla Watson (b. 1940), a Murri Gangulu (Indigenous Australian) visual artist, activist, and academic

via Book of Commonplace 2005-2006, p. 153.

Wednesday 23 June 2021

Quotes 149: Anna Callender Brackett

"We go on multiplying our conveniences only to multiply our cares. We increase our possessions only to the enlargement of our anxieties." 

–– Anna Callender Brackett (1836-1911), American philosopher, translator, and educator

via Book of Commonplace 2005-2006, p. 146.

Tuesday 22 June 2021

Quotes 148: Napoleon Hill

"If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way." 

–– Napoleon Hill (1883-1970), American writer

via Book of Commonplace 2005-2006, p. 134.

Monday 21 June 2021

Quotes 147: Simone Weil

"Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void." 

–– Simone Weil (1909-1943), French activist, mystic, and philosopher 

via Book of Commonplace 2005-2006, p. 134

Sunday 20 June 2021

Quotes 146: George Leonard

"Your resistance to change is likely to reach its peak when significant change is imminent." 

–– George Leonard (1923-2010), American writer, editor and educator 

via Book of Commonplace 2005-2006, p. 133

Saturday 19 June 2021

Quotes 145: Marcel Proust

"Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind." 

–– Marcel Proust (1871-1922), French writer and critic

via Book of Commonplace 2005-2006, p. 132

Friday 18 June 2021

Quotes 144: Albert Camus

"After all, perhaps the greatness of art lies in the perpetual tension between beauty and pain, the love of men and the madness of creation, unbearable solitude and the exhausting crowd, rejection and consent." 

–– Albert Camus (1913-1960), French writer and philosopher

via Book of Commonplace 2005-2006, p. 132

Thursday 17 June 2021

Quotes 143: James Baldwin

"All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story, to vomit the anguish up." 

–– James Baldwin (1924-1987), American writer and activist

via Book of Commonplace 2005-2006, p. 132

Wednesday 16 June 2021

Quotes 142: Andrew Harvey

"The very things we wish to avoid, neglect, and flee from turn out to be the 'prima materia' from which all real growth comes." 

–– Andrew Harvey (b. 1952), British writer and religious scholar 

via Book of Commonplace 2005-2006, p. 131

Tuesday 15 June 2021

Quotes 141: Anwar Sadat

"He who cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never be able to change reality." 

–– Anwar Sadat (1918-1981), Egyptian politician and President of Egypt (1970-1981) 

via Book of Commonplace 2005-2006, p. 131

Monday 14 June 2021

Quotes 140: Neil Gaiman

"I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're doing something. So that's my wish... Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life. Whatever it is you're scared to doing, do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever." 

–– Neil Gaiman (b. 1960), British author and screenwriter

Sunday 13 June 2021

Quotes 139: Viggo Mortensen

"One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was: go slow to go fast. We live as though there aren't enough hours in the day but if we do each thing calmly and carefully we will get it done quicker and with much less stress." 

–– Viggo Mortensen (b. 1958), American actor and author

Saturday 12 June 2021

Quotes 138: Broadchurch

"The future is not inevitable. It's up to you." 

–– character D.I. Alex Hardy to his daughter Daisy Hardy in Broadchurch episode 3.6 

via Book of Commonplace 2020-2021, p. 109.

Friday 11 June 2021

Quotes 137: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"You know you have reached perfection of design, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away." 

–– Antoine De Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944), French writer and aviator 

via Book of Commonplace 2020-2021, p. 111

Thursday 10 June 2021

Quotes 136: George Washington Addair

"Everything you have ever wanted is on the other side of fear." 

–– George Washington Addair (1931-2012), American guru

Wednesday 9 June 2021

Quotes 135: Ann Hamilton

"A life of making isn't a series of shows, or projects, or productions, or things: it is an everyday practice. It is a practice of questions more than answers, of waiting to find what you need more often than knowing what you need to do. Waiting, like listening and meandering, is best when it is an active and not a passive state." 

–– Ann Hamilton (b. 1956), American installation artist

Source: Art Propelled, January 4, 2020.

via Book of Commonplace 2020-2021, p. 100.

Tuesday 8 June 2021

Quotes 134: Louise Penny

"Stephen put his hand on the boy's arm and said, "Patience. Patience. With patience comes choice, and with choice comes power." 

–– Louise Penny (b. 1958), Canadian writer 

Source: Louise Penny. All the Devils are Here. New York: Minotaur Books, 2020; p. 4.

via Book of Commonplace 2020-2021, p. 104.

Monday 7 June 2021

Quotes 133: Leonard Woolf

"Every morning, therefore, at about 9:30 after breakfast each of us, as if moved by a law of unquestioned nature, went off and 'worked' until lunch at one. It is surprising how much one can produce in a year, whether of buns or books or pots or pictures, if one works hard and professionally for three and a half hours every day for 330 days. That was why, despite her disabilities, Virginia was able to produce so very much." 

–– Leonard Woolf (1880-1969), British political theorist and writer

Source: tumblr.austinkleon.com, Tuesday May 25, 2021

via: Book of Commonplace 2020-2021, p. 107.

Sunday 6 June 2021

Quotes 132: Helen Keller

"Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence ... and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content." 

–– Helen Keller (1880-1968), American author, disability rights advocate, political activist, and lecturer

via Book of Commonplace 2020-2021, p. 107.

Saturday 5 June 2021

Quotes 131: Rayman Boozer

"Clashing is what makes things interesting." 

–– Rayman Boozer, American Interior Designer 

Source: Living Etc., April 2021, p. 53

Friday 4 June 2021

Quotes 130: Helen Humphreys

"A climate is a language you learn through your skin." 

–– Helen Humphreys (b. 1961), British-born Canadian writer

Source: Helen Humphreys. 'Climatology.' Anthem. London, Ontario: Brick Books, 1999; p. 28.

Thursday 3 June 2021

Quotes 129: Ali Smith

"That's what winter is: an exercise in remembering how to still yourself then how to come pliantly back to life again." 

–– Ali Smith (b. 1962), Scottish writer 

Wednesday 2 June 2021

Quotes 128: Annie Dillard

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." 

–– Annie Dillard (b. 1945), American writer 

Tuesday 1 June 2021

Quotes 127: Hermann Hesse

"If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us." 

–– Hermann Hesse (1877-1962), German-born Swiss poet and novelist 

via Book of Commonplace 2005-2006, p. 131.