Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
There is poetry as soon as we realize that we possess nothing.
John Cage
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
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.
Poetic
Possess
Soon
Poetry
Realize
Realizing
Nothing
More quotes by John Cage
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?
John Cage
Look at everything. Don't close your eyes to the world around you. Look and become curious and interested in what there is to see.
John Cage
In the nature of the use of chance operations is the belief that all answers answer all questions.
John Cage
The attitude I take is that everyday life is more interesting than forms of celebration, when we become aware of it. That when is when our intentions go down to zero. Then suddenly you notice that the world is magical.
John Cage
To accept whatever comes, regardless of the consequences, is to be unafraid.
John Cage
What I'm proposing, to myself and other people, is what I often call the tourist attitude - that you act as though you've never been there before. So that you're not supposed to know anything about it. If you really get down to brass tacks, we have never been anywhere before.
John Cage
Paper should be edible, nutritious. Inks used for printing or writing should have delicious flavors. Magazines or newspapers read at breakfast should be eaten for lunch. Instead of throwing one's mail in the waste-basket, it should be saved for the dinner guests.
John Cage
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.
John Cage
We need not destroy the past. It is gone.
John Cage
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
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.
John Cage
Art is whatever you can get away with.
John Cage
As McLuhan says, everything happens at once.
John Cage
Now that we have everything we need, we discover that there is almost nothing that we have that we want
John Cage
The responsibility of the artist consists in perfecting his work so that it may become attractively disinteresting.
John Cage
Music is edifying, for from time to time it sets the soul in operation.
John Cage
The grand thing about the human mind is that it can turn its own tables and see meaninglessness as ultimate meaning.
John Cage
All great art is a form of complaint
John Cage
There are some good people in it, but the orchestra as a whole is equivalent to a gang bent on destruction.
John Cage
Value judgments are destructive to our proper business, which is curiosity and awareness.
John Cage
