Quote

If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.

John Cage

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John Cage
Age: 79 †
Born: 1912
Born: September 5
Died: 1992
Died: August 2
Composer
Illustrator
Music Theorist
Musician
Musicologist
Painter
Philosopher
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
LA
California
John Milton Cage Jr.
John Milton Cage
Jr.
John Milton
Jr. Cage
J. C.
Something
Minutes
Four
Inspirational
Discovers
Two
Sixteen
Stills
Thirty
Still
Eventually
Music
Boring
Trying
Eight

More quotes by John Cage

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The purpose of music is to sober and quiet the mind, thus making it susceptible to divine influences.
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Food, one assumes, provides nourishment but Americans eat it fully aware that small amounts of poison have been added to improve its appearance and delay its putrefaction.
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Get yourself out of whatever cage you find yourself in.
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The world is teeming anything can happen.
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It's useless to play lullabies for those who cannot sleep.
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Music is edifying, for from time to time it sets the soul in operation.
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My favourite music is the music I haven't yet heard. I don't hear the music I write: I write in order to hear the music I haven't yet heard.
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The grand thing about the human mind is that it can turn its own tables and see meaninglessness as ultimate meaning.
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We only hear what we listen for.
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I want to change my way of seeing, NOT my way of feeling. I was perfectly happy about my feelings.
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...we make our lives by what we love.
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Composing for the prepared piano is not a criticism of the instrument. I'm only being practical.
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Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think.
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It is not irritating to be where one is. It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else.
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The act of listening is in fact an act of composing.
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Some people take music too seriously, and some don't take it seriously enough, others take it just right.
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Our poetry now is the realization that we possess nothing. Anything therefore is a delight (since we do not posses it) and thus need not fear its loss.
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No one can have an idea once he starts really listening.
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If this word music is sacred and reserved for eighteenth and nineteenth century instruments, we can substitute a more meaningful term: organization of sound.
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My favorite music is the music I haven't yet heard
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