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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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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.
Music
Name
Wells
Names
Well
Pleasure
Immanuel
Giving
Known
Kant
Mean
Order
German
Things
Two
Philosopher
Give
Laughter
Anything
Deep

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Food, one assumes, provides nourishment but Americans eat it fully aware that small amounts of poison have been added to improve its appearance and delay its putrefaction.
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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.
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Whether I make them or not, there are always sounds to be heard and all of them are excellent.
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The world, the real is not an object. It is a process.
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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.
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Composing for the prepared piano is not a criticism of the instrument. I'm only being practical.
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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.
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No one can have an idea once he starts really listening.
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All God's religions ... have not been able to put mankind back together again.
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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.
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What right do I have to be in the woods, if the woods are not in me.
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Art's purpose is to sober and quiet the mind so that it is in accord with what happens.
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My favorite music is the music I haven't yet heard
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Music is edifying, for from time to time it sets the soul in operation.
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All great art is a form of complaint
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Some people take music too seriously, and some don't take it seriously enough, others take it just right.
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To accept whatever comes, regardless of the consequences, is to be unafraid.
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An error is simply a failure to adjust immediately from a preconception to an actuality.
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It is not futile to do what we do. We wake up with energy and we do something. And we make, of course, failures and we make mistakes, but we sometimes get glimpses of what we might do next.
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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.
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