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All that we make and do is shaped by the communities and traditions that contain us, not to mention by money, power, politics, and luck. And even should the artist or scientist think she has extracted herself from the world to stand alone in the studio, a tremendous array of faculties and mind-states may well attend her creativity.

Lewis Hyde

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Lewis Hyde
Age: 79
Born: 1945
Born: January 1
Essayist
Poet
Writer
Boston
Massachusetts
Think
Power
Tradition
Shaped
Thinking
States
Creativity
Communities
Extracted
World
May
Stand
Faculty
Array
Wells
Alone
Tremendous
Faculties
Well
Politics
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Even
Community
Studios
Traditions
Mind
Artist
Scientist
Mention
Make
Money
Luck
Contain

More quotes by Lewis Hyde

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Science may not be as intimate as the medical profession nonetheless, it certainly is a community in which ideas are often shared as contributions, not as proprietary things.
Lewis Hyde
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An essential portion of any artist’s labor is not creation so much as invocation. Part of the work cannot be made, it must be received and we cannot have this gift except, perhaps, by supplication, by courting, by creating within ourselves that ‘begging bowl’ to which the gift is drawn.
Lewis Hyde
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A gift that cannot be given away ceases to be a gift. The spirit of a gift is kept alive by its constant donation.
Lewis Hyde
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But neither money nor machines can create. They shuttle tokens of energy, but they do not transform. A civilization based on them puts people out of touch with their creative powers.
Lewis Hyde
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Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage.
Lewis Hyde
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Art does not organize parties, nor is it the servant or colleague of power. Rather, the work of art becomes a political force simply through the faithful representation of the spirit. It is a political act to create an image of the self or of the collective.
Lewis Hyde
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Uncovering secrets is apocalyptic in the simple sense (the Greek root means ‘an uncovering’). In this case, it lifts the shame covers. It allows articulation to enter where silence once ruled.
Lewis Hyde
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We are only alive to the degree that we can let ourselves be moved.
Lewis Hyde
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True citizens are not the audience of their government, nor its consumers they are its makers.
Lewis Hyde
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Unlike the sale of a commodity, the giving of a gift tends to establish a relationship between the parties involved. When gifts circulate within a group, their commerce leaves a series of interconnected relationships in its wake, and a kind of decentralized cohesiveness emerges.
Lewis Hyde
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Better to operate with detachment, then better to have a way but infuse it with a little humor best, to have no way at all but to have instead the wit constantly to make one's way anew from the materials at hand.
Lewis Hyde
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We forgive when we give up attachment to our wounds.
Lewis Hyde
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An essential portion of any artist's labor is not creation so much as invocation
Lewis Hyde
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To be a great teacher, you can't simply be looking at how to earn your income. And with a priest or spiritual leader - there's another relationship that makes those lives what they are. And in each of these cases you'll find elements of gift exchange thriving, and you'll also find a tension around it.
Lewis Hyde