Quote

The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is why do I think it's not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.

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.
Firsts
Question
First
Beauty
Something
Asks
Think
Doesn
Thinking
Reality
Beautiful
Shortly
Seems
Discover
Reason
Seem

More quotes by John Cage

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Guy Nearing told us it's a good idea when hunting mushrooms to have a pleasant goal, a waterfall for instance, and, having reached it, to return another way. When, however, we're obliged to go and come back by the same path, returning we notice mushrooms we hadn't noticed going out.
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Out of the work comes the work.
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The world is teeming anything can happen.
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Music is a means of rapid transportation.
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There is poetry as soon as we realize that we possess nothing.
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One shouldn't go to the woods looking for something, but rather to see what is there.
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Art is whatever you can get away with.
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To accept whatever comes, regardless of the consequences, is to be unafraid.
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Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think.
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Which is more musical: a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school?
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In the nature of the use of chance operations is the belief that all answers answer all questions.
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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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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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Why do you not do as I do? Letting go of your thoughts as though they were the cold ashes of a long dead fire?
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A meal without mushrooms is like a day without rain.
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...we make our lives by what we love.
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There's no such thing as silence. Something is always happening that makes a sound.
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If someone says can't, that shows you what to do.
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When you start working, everybody is in your studio- the past, your friends, enemies, the art world, and above all, your own ideas- all are there. But as you continue painting, they start leaving, one by one, and you are left completely alone. Then, if you are lucky, even you leave.
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The world is no longer a romantic place some of its people still are however, and therein lies the promise. Don't let the world win.
John Cage