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Our business in living is to become fluent with the life we are living, and art can help this.

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.
Helping
Art
Become
Life
Fluent
Help
Living
Business

More quotes by 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 someone says can't, that shows you what to do.
John Cage
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We are involved in a life that passes understanding and our highest business is our daily life.
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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Each moment presents what happens.
John Cage
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My favorite music is the music I haven't yet heard
John Cage
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Try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.
John Cage
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What right do I have to be in the woods, if the woods are not in me.
John Cage
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The purpose of music is to sober and quiet the mind, thus making it susceptible to divine influences.
John Cage
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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
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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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In an utter emptiness anything can take place.
John Cage
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If my work is accepted, I must move on to the point where it is not.
John Cage
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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.
John Cage
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Get yourself out of whatever cage you find yourself in.
John Cage
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No one can have an idea once he starts really listening.
John Cage
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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
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A meal without mushrooms is like a day without rain.
John Cage
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Out of the work comes the work.
John Cage
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The responsibility of the artist consists in perfecting his work so that it may become attractively disinteresting.
John Cage