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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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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.
Always
Happenings
Happening
Silence
Sound
Makes
Thing
Something

More quotes by 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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Art is whatever you can get away with.
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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Beware of losing what isn't in your head.
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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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
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One day when I was studying with Schoenberg, he pointed out the eraser on his pencil and said, 'This end is more important than the other.' After twenty years I learned to write directly in ink.
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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One shouldn't go to the woods looking for something, but rather to see what is there.
John Cage
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All God's religions ... have not been able to put mankind back together again.
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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Everyday is a beautiful day, Everything is pleasing
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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The material of music is sound and silence. Integrating these is composing.
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
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There will always be critics eager to fashion opinions for the lazy and incapable.
John Cage
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My work became an exploration of non-intention.
John Cage
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There is poetry as soon as we realize that we possess nothing.
John Cage
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Each moment presents what happens.
John Cage
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All great art is a form of complaint
John Cage