Calligraphy Quotes

• Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country.... I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this.... It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me.

  Steve Jobs

  Inspiring, Beautiful, Country

  Commencement Address at Stanford University, delivered 12 June 2005, Palo Alto, CA

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• The circle is a reminder that each moment is not just the present, but is inclusive of our gratitude to the past and our responsibility to the future.

  Kazuaki Tanahashi

  Gratitude, Future, Responsibility

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• The five excellences include: calligraphy, painting, poetry, medicine, and t'ai chi chuan.

  Cheng Man-ch'ing

  Medicine, Poetry, Excellence

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• Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form, and thus with an independent existence. Its heartwood is calligraphy - the dance, on a tiny stage, of the living, speaking hand - and its roots reach into living soil, though its branches may be hung each year with new machines. So long as the root lives, typography remains a source of true delight, true knowledge, true surprise.

  Robert Bringhurst

  Independent, Hands, Years

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• Calligraphy may well be simply an artistic version of another form, that is the ideograms which make up the poem, but then not only does it reflect the character and temperament of the artist but . . . also betrays his heart rate, his breathing.

  Sijie Dai

  Heart, Character, Artist

  Dai Sijie (2009). “Once on a Moonless Night”, p.17, Random House

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• If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backward 10 years later.

  Steve Jobs

  College, Stanford University, Years

  Commencement Address at Stanford University, delivered 12 June 2005, Palo Alto, CA

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• The Zen way of calligraphy is to write in the most straightforward, simple way as if you were a beginner, not trying to make something skillful or beautiful, but simply writing with full attention as if you were discovering what you were writing for the first time; then your full nature will be in your writing.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Beautiful, Time, Nature

  Shunryu Suzuki (2010). “Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind”, p.14, Shambhala Publications

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• If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.

  Steve Jobs

  College, Stanford University, Multiple Jobs

  Commencement Address at Stanford University, delivered 12 June 2005, Palo Alto, CA

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• Just as writing can become calligraphy when it's creatively, skillfully, and consciously performed, so can all other activities become art. In this case, we are reflecting upon life itself as an artistic statement-the art of living.

  H. E Davey

  Art, Writing, Reflecting Upon

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• If I had known there was such a thing as Islamic Calligraphy, I would never have started to paint. I have strived to reach the highest levels of artistic mastery, but I found that Islamic Calligraphy was there ages before I was.

  Pablo Picasso

  Islamic, Age, Mastery

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• Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later.

  Steve Jobs

  College, Years, Dots

  Commencement Address at Stanford University, delivered 12 June 2005, Palo Alto, CA

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• Calligraphy of geese
  against the sky-
  the moon seals it.

  Yosa Buson

  Moon, Sky, Geese

  Yosa Buson, “Calligraphy Of Geese”

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• Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation.

  Barack Obama

  Islamic, Peaceful, Culture

  A New Beginning: Speech at Cairo University, delivered 4 June 2009, Cairo, Egypt

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• That which interests me above all else is the calligraphy of a tree or the tiles of a roof, and I mean leaf by leaf, branch by branch, blade by blade of grass.

  Joan Miro

  Mean, Tree, Branches

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• I've always been a very restless person. I work hard, spend too much time looking after my son, I dance like a mad thing, I learned calligraphy. I go to courses on selling, I read one book after another. But that's all a way of avoiding those moments when nothing is happening, because those blank spaces give me a feeling of absolute emptiness, in which not a single crumb of love exists.

  Paulo Coelho

  Book, Hard Work, Son

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• In a painting, you can't make out whether the artist painted the left eye before the right eye. In Chinese calligraphy, you can see the progression of the artist's stroke.

  Vikram Seth

  Eye, Artist, Chinese

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• Wabi means spare, impoverished; simple and functional. It connotes a transcendence of fad and fashion. The spirit of wabi imbues all the Zen arts, from calligraphy to karate, from the tea ceremony to Zen archery.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Fashion, Art, Mean

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• A lot of Chinese martial arts films were based on Chinese martial arts novels. And these novels created a world of putting history, calligraphy, and martial arts into one.

  Donnie Yen

  Art, Chinese, World

  Interview with Spence D., www.ign.com. August 26, 2004.

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• I am not a great believer in dialectical struggle. I am much more of a fusion person. I see it as a dialogue, or trialogue, or polylogue: many, many, many voices, going back a long way. The cultural picture is much more mutually enriching at many different levels, manufacturers...absolutely, design and calligraphy. It's an amazing amount of cross-interests between people.

  Marina Warner

  Struggle, Voice, Long

  Source: therumpus.net

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• Kaz's art is a powerful example of discipline and freedom. His classical calligraphy captures the inner movement and stillness of the brush and mind.

  Joan Halifax

  Art, Powerful, Discipline

  "About Kazuaki Tanahashi: An Interview with Roshi Joan Halifax". Shambhala Interview, www.shambhala.com.

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• Barrabas came to us by sea, the child Clara wrote in her delicate calligraphy.

  Isabel Allende

  Children, Sea, Delicate

  Isabel Allende (1985). “The House of the Spirits”, Everymans Library

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• The story in that particular spot was an ancient history story, and we wanted to give it a historical feeling, which was why we used a historical calligraphy scroll come to life.

  Jennifer Yuh Nelson

  Giving, Feelings, Historical

  "The Women of “Kung Fu Panda 3”: Girlpower in the World of Animation" by Leslie Combemale, www.indiewire.com. February 1, 2016.

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• We had Chinese artists that would put in elements for the Chinese audience like the calligraphy actually means something so the audience when they read it they'll understand. So there were definitely little things we were able to do that specifically leveraged the artists' talents.

  Jennifer Yuh Nelson

  Mean, Artist, Chinese

  "The Women of “Kung Fu Panda 3”: Girlpower in the World of Animation". Interview with Leslie Combemale, www.indiewire.com. February 1, 2016.

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• I couldn't know about my culture, my history, without learning the language, so I started learning Arabic - reading, writing. I used to speak Arabic before that, but Tunisian Arabic dialect. Step by step, I discovered calligraphy. I painted before and I just brought the calligraphy into my artwork. That's how everything started. The funny thing is the fact that going back to my roots made me feel French.

  eL Seed

  Reading, Writing, Funny Things

  Interview with Emily McDermott, www.interviewmagazine.com. January 29, 2016.

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• In some Arab art exhibitions that have happened, there's always this idea that the East is more traditional; they show a lot of works on calligraphy and religion.

  Massimiliano Gioni

  Art, Ideas, East

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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