Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
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
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.
Anything
Realization
Nothing
Delight
Need
Thus
Needs
Therefore
Loss
Poetry
Posses
Since
Posse
Fear
Possess
More quotes by John Cage
My work became an exploration of non-intention.
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
Music is edifying, for from time to time it sets the soul in operation.
John Cage
When I went to the analyst for a kind of preliminary meeting, he said, 'I'll be able to fix you so that you'll write much more music than you do now.' I said, 'Good heavens! I already write too much, it seems to me.' That promise of his put me off.
John Cage
When we separate music from life we get is art.
John Cage
My favorite music is the music I haven't yet heard
John Cage
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
Art's purpose is to sober and quiet the mind so that it is in accord with what happens.
John Cage
There is poetry as soon as we realize that we possess nothing.
John Cage
Everyday is a beautiful day, Everything is pleasing
John Cage
If someone says can't, that shows you what to do.
John Cage
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
It is not irritating to be where one is. It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else.
John Cage
People paying attention to vibratory activity, not in reaction to a fixed ideal performance, but each time attentively to how it happens to be this time, not necessarily two times the same. A music that transports the listener to the moment where he is.
John Cage
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
As far as consistency of thought goes, I prefer inconsistency.
John Cage
The act of listening is in fact an act of composing.
John Cage
Try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.
John Cage
In the nature of the use of chance operations is the belief that all answers answer all questions.
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
