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

More quotes by John Cage

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The material of music is sound and silence. Integrating these is composing.
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If my work is accepted, I must move on to the point where it is not.
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So somebody has talent? So what? Dime a dozen. And we're overpopulated. Actually we have more food than we have people and more art. We've gotten to the point of burning food. When will we begin to burn our art?
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A meal without mushrooms is like a day without rain.
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An error is simply a failure to adjust immediately from a preconception to an actuality.
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Let no one imagine that in owning a recording he has the music. The very practice of music is a celebration that we own nothing.
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In that case I will devote my life to beating my head against that wall.
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For myself and my own experience now, I don't really need any music. I have enough to listen to with just the sounds of the environment. I listen to the sounds of 6th avenue.
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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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There are some good people in it, but the orchestra as a whole is equivalent to a gang bent on destruction.
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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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Which is more musical: a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school?
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To accept whatever comes, regardless of the consequences, is to be unafraid.
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Everyday is a beautiful day, Everything is pleasing
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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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In an utter emptiness anything can take place.
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Out of the work comes the work.
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No one can have an idea once he starts really listening.
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Each moment presents what happens.
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I don't need sound to talk to me.
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