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Man's activity consists in either a making or doing. Both of these aspects of the active life depend for their correction upon the contemplative life (that is, the Hero).

Ananda Coomaraswamy

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Ananda Coomaraswamy
Age: 70 †
Born: 1877
Born: August 22
Died: 1947
Died: September 9
Art Historian
Mythographer
Philosopher
Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy
A. K. Coomaraswamy
Ānanda Kentish Kumāra-svāmī
Ananda Kentish Coomara-Swamy
Ānanda Kentish Kumāra- Svāmī
Ananda Kentish Coomara- Swamy
Ānandakentish Kumārasvāmī
Ananda K. Coomaraswamy
Ananda Kentish Muthu Coomaraswamy
Hero
Correction
Activity
Corrections
Depends
Contemplative
Either
Aspects
Upon
Consists
Making
Depend
Men
Active
Life
Aspect

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It is the natural instinct of a child to work from within outwards First I think, and then I draw my think. What wasted efforts we make to teach the child to stop thinking, and only to observe!
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Beauty is the attractive power of perfection.
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We have come to think of art and work as incompatible, or at least independent categories and have for the first time in history created an industry without art.
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Industry without art is brutality.
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The most awkward means are adequate to the communication of authentic experience, and the finest words no compensation for lack of it. It is for this reason that we are moved by the true Primitives and that the most accomplished art craftsmanship leaves us cold.
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The artist is not a special kind of man, but every man is a special kind of artist.
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Becoming is not a contradiction of being but the epiphany of being.
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From one point of view becoming is a humiliation, and from another a royal procession.
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It is only when the maker of things is a maker of things by vocation, and not merely holding down a job, that the price of things is approximate to their real value. . . .
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No creature can attain a higher grade of nature without ceasing to exist.
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Art is nothing tangible. We cannot call a painting 'art' as the words 'artifact' and 'artificial' imply. The thing made is a work of art made by art, but not itself art. The art remains in the artist and is the knowledge by which things are made.
Ananda Coomaraswamy
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The man incapable of contemplation cannot be an artist, but only a skillful workman.
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The vocation, whether it be that of the farmer or the architect, is a function the exercise of this function as regards the man himself is the most indispensable means of spiritual development, and as regards his relation to society the measure of his worth.
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What I have sought is to understand what has been said.
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All that is best for us comes of itself into our hands-but if we strive to overtake it, it perpetually eludes us.
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Myth embodies the nearest approach to absolute truth that can be stated in words.
Ananda Coomaraswamy