Catharsis Quotes

• And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.

  Maurice Sendak

  Children, Mean, Taming

  Maurice Sendak's acceptance speech upon being awarded the Caldecott Medal for "Where the Wild Things Are" (1964), as quoted in "Newbery and Caldecott Medal Books: 1956-65" edited by Lee Kingman, 1965.

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• Catharsis is about cleansing and healing at one and the same time - healing memories and attitudes, healing the spirit and the heart.

  Desmond Tutu

  Memories, Attitude, Healing

  Source: www.egonzehnder.com

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• A tragedy is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself . . . with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.

  Aristotle

  Fear, Tragedy, Serious

  Poetics ch. 6, 1449b

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• The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Wisdom, Emotional, Winning

  Martin Luther King, Martin Luther King (Jr.) (1989). “The trumpet of conscience”, HarperCollins

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• Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

  William Shakespeare

  Inspirational, Life, Success

  'Macbeth' (1606) act 5, sc. 5, l. 16

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• God, it was good to let go, let the tight mask fall off, and the bewildered, chaotic fragments pour out. It was the purge, the catharsis.

  Sylvia Plath

  Letting Go, Fall, Mental Health

  Sylvia Plath (2007). “The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath”, p.152, Anchor

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• You get a show where people are jumping up and dancing, but it's not a critical event in the sense of profound catharsis. Essentially it's celebratory.

  Archie Shepp

  Jumping, People, Dancing

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• I sometimes think it's like a weird elastic band. The more tragic your work is, the quicker you snap back. There's a catharsis in telling a miserable old tale; you get rid of demons.

  Anne-Marie Duff

  Thinking, Band, Miserable

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• From their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, they continually cope with frustrations as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.

  Maurice Sendak

  Children, Mean, Frustration

  Maurice Sendak's acceptance speech upon being awarded the Caldecott Medal for "Where the Wild Things Are" (1964), as quoted in "Newbery and Caldecott Medal Books: 1956-65" edited by Lee Kingman, 1965.

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• There's something about a catharsis that is very important.

  Glenn Close

  Important

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Art is a form of catharsis.

  Dorothy Parker

  Art, Form, Artist

  Dorothy Parker (1944). “Dorothy Parker”

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• Art is a form of catharsis emotional release, purging, cleansing, purifying.

  Dorothy Parker

  Art, Emotional, Cleansing

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• Sometimes when we weep in the movies we weep for ourselves or for a life unlived. Or we even go to the movies because we want to resist the emotion that's there in front of us. I think there is always a catharsis that I look for and that makes the movie experience worthwhile.

  Edward Zwick

  Movie, Thinking, Experience

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury; signifying nothing.

  William Shakespeare

  Life, Death, Play

  'Macbeth' (1606) act 5, sc. 5, l. 16

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• Catharsis comes from the ancient Greek word...which literally translated means 'to pass a hard stool'

  Tim Sandlin

  Mean, Greek, Ancient

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• A movie can and should have some real dissonance throughout - rage, heartache, tears, conflict, catharsis and all the other elements Aristotle demanded of a good story - but the chord has to be resolved.

  Josh Radnor

  Real, Should Have, Heartache

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• It is obvious that art cannot teach anyone anything, since in four thousand years humanity has learnt nothing at all.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Art, Years, Humanity

  "Sculpting in Time" by Andrei Tarkovsky, (p. 50), 1986.

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• The act of writing is a kind of catharsis, a liberation, but I never really concerned myself with that. I write because it interests me.

  Nathalie Sarraute

  Writing, Kind, Liberation

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• The thing should have plot and character, beginning, middle and end. Arouse pity and then have a catharsis. Those were the best principles I was ever taught.

  Anne Rice

  Character, Should Have, Principles

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• My pain is constant and sharp, and I do not hope for a better world for anyone.

  Bret Easton Ellis

  Pain, World, Psycho

  Bret Easton Ellis (2014). “American Psycho: Picador Classic”, p.302, Pan Macmillan

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• No movie has ever been able to provide a catharsis for the Holocaust, and I suspect none will ever be able to provide one for 9/11. Such subjects overwhelm art.

  Roger Ebert

  Art, Holocaust, Able

  Roger Ebert (2012). “Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2013: 25th Anniversary Edition”, p.160, Andrews McMeel Publishing

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• You cannot stop smoking directly because it has many related things, implications. You are tense, and if you stop smoking you will start something else and the other may be more harmful. Don't go on escaping problems, face them. The problem is that you are tense, so the goal should be how to be non-tense, not, smoking or not smoking. Meditate. Relax your tensions without any object into the sky, allow catharsis to happen. When you are non-tense these things will become absurd, foolish, and they will drop. Food will change, your styles of living will change.

  Rajneesh

  Escaping, Sky, Goal

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• I feel like songwriting changed from something that I liked doing to something that, I feel, is a very important outlet for me to digest all the things around me. Once I put thoughts into a song, I can let it go, it doesn't bug me anymore you know what I mean? It's kind of a catharsis.

  Dan Mangan

  Song, Mean, Important

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• I didn't have a catharsis for my childhood pain, most of us don't, and until I learned how to forgive those people and let it go, I was unhappy.

  Tyler Perry

  Pain, People, Childhood

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• It is obvious that art cannot teach anyone anything, since in four thousand years humanity has learnt nothing at all. We should long ago have become angels had we been capable of paying attention to the experience of art, and allowing ourselves to be changed in accordance with the ideals it expresses. Art only has the capacity, through shock and catharsis, to make the human soul receptive to good. It’s ridiculous to imagine that people can be taught to be good…Art can only give food – a jolt – the occasion – for psychical experience.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Art, Angel, Long Ago

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