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All great art is a form of complaint

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.
Art
Form
Great
Complaint
Complaints

More quotes by John Cage

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No one can have an idea once he starts really listening.
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.
John Cage
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There's no such thing as silence. Something is always happening that makes a sound.
John Cage
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My favorite music is the music I haven't yet heard
John Cage
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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
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To accept whatever comes, regardless of the consequences, is to be unafraid.
John Cage
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Now that we have everything we need, we discover that there is almost nothing that we have that we want
John Cage
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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?
John Cage
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There was a German philosopher who is very well known, his name was Immanuel Kant, and he said there are two things that don’t have to mean anything, one is music and the other is laughter. Don’t have to mean anything that is, in order to give us deep pleasure.
John Cage
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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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The grand thing about the human mind is that it can turn its own tables and see meaninglessness as ultimate meaning.
John Cage
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An error is simply a failure to adjust immediately from a preconception to an actuality.
John Cage
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Composing for the prepared piano is not a criticism of the instrument. I'm only being practical.
John Cage
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My work became an exploration of non-intention.
John Cage
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Try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.
John Cage
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If someone says can't, that shows you what to do.
John Cage
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We only hear what we listen for.
John Cage
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Don't try to create and analyze at the same time. They're different processes.
John Cage
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In that case I will devote my life to beating my head against that wall.
John Cage
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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.
John Cage