Quote

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

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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.
Anything
Realization
Nothing
Delight
Need
Thus
Needs
Therefore
Loss
Poetry
Posses
Since
Posse
Fear
Possess

More quotes by 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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As far as consistency of thought goes, I prefer inconsistency.
John Cage
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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.
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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Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think.
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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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.
John Cage
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Value judgments are destructive to our proper business, which is curiosity and awareness.
John Cage
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Until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about the future of music.
John Cage
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The function of Art is to imitate Nature in her manner of operation. Our understanding of her manner of operation&Rdquo changes according to advances in the sciences.
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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The Indians long ago knew that music was going on permanently and that hearing it was like looking out a window at a landscape which didn't stop when one turned away.
John Cage
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Some people take music too seriously, and some don't take it seriously enough, others take it just right.
John Cage
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When you make music you are acting as a philosopher. You can either do that consciously or you can do it unconsciously, but you're doing it.
John Cage
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Artists talk a lot about freedom. So, recalling the expression free as a bird, Morton Feldman went to a park one day and spent some time watching our feathered friends. When he came back, he said, You know? They're not free: they're fighting over bits of food.
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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A meal without mushrooms is like a day without rain.
John Cage
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We need not destroy the past. It is gone.
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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It is not irritating to be where one is. It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else.
John Cage