Quote

What distinguishes modern art from the art of other ages is criticism.

Octavio Paz

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Octavio Paz
Age: 84 †
Born: 1914
Born: March 31
Died: 1998
Died: April 2
Diplomat
Essayist
Lyricist
Philosopher
Poet
Politician
Translator
Writer
Mexico City
Mexico
Octavio Paz Lozano
Artist
Art
Distinguishes
Ages
Criticism
Modern
Age

More quotes by Octavio Paz

Image
Contemporary man has rationalized the myths, but he has not been able to destroy them.
Octavio Paz
Image
Deserve your dream.
Octavio Paz
Image
The woman who died night after night and her dying was a long goodbye, a train that never left.
Octavio Paz
Image
The world is born when two people kiss
Octavio Paz
Image
Solitude is the profoundest fact
Octavio Paz
Image
Solitude lies at the lowest depth of the human condition. Man is the only being who feels himself to be alone and the only one who is searching for the Other.
Octavio Paz
Image
Ruy-Sanchez's works of fiction are always amazing: adventure, poetry and intelligence in a new geometry of words... His writing has nerve and agility, his intelligence is sharp without being cruel, his mood is sympathetic without complicity.
Octavio Paz
Image
By diminishing the value of silence, publicity has also diminished that of language. The two are inseparable: knowing how to speak has always meant knowing how to keep silent, knowing that there are times when one should say nothing.
Octavio Paz
Image
What is art? A violet. Is that all? An artistic style is a living entity, a continuous process of invention. It can never be imposed from without born of the profoundest tendencies within a society, its direction is to a certain extent unpredictable, in much the same way as the eventual configuration of a tree's branches.
Octavio Paz
Image
I thought that the world was a vast system of signs, a conversation between giant beings. My actions, the cricket's saw, the star's blink, were nothing but pauses and syllables, scattered phrases from that dialogue. What word could it be, of which I was only a syllable? Who speaks the word? To whom is it spoken?
Octavio Paz
Image
Images, memories, fragmentary shapes and forms all those sensations, visions, half-thoughts that appear and disappear in the wink of an eye, as one sets forth to meet.... The path also disappears as I think of it, as I say it.
Octavio Paz
Image
Social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings.
Octavio Paz
Image
Poet: gardener of epitaphs.
Octavio Paz
Image
Writers, you know, are the beggars of Western society.
Octavio Paz
Image
Love is the revelation of the other person's freedom.
Octavio Paz
Image
Modern man likes to pretend that his thinking is wide-awake. But this wide-awake thinking has led us into the mazes of a nightmare in which the torture chambers are endlessly repeated in the mirrors of reason.
Octavio Paz
Image
Self-discovery is above all the realization that we are alone.
Octavio Paz
Image
A flower without a stem, is beauty waiting to die. A heart without love, is a tear waiting to cry.
Octavio Paz
Image
Tradition is no longer a continuity but a series of sharp breaks. The modern tradition is the tradition of revolt.
Octavio Paz
Image
Art is what remains of religion: the dance above the yawning abyss.
Octavio Paz