Masterpiece Quotes - Page 14

• It is when their age of passions is past that great men produce their masterpieces, just as it is after volcanic eruptions that the soil is most fertile.

  Nicolas Chamfort

  Passion, Past, Men

  Sébastien-Roch-Nicolas Chamfort (1902). “The Cynic's Breviary: Maxims and Anecdotes from Nicolas de Chamfort”

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• The great and glorious masterpiece of men is to live to the point. All other things-to reign, to hoard, to build-are, at most, but inconsiderable props and appendages.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Reign, Props

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• A lot of the young people make beautiful films or big films or are able to finance them, but they can't get anyone to distribute them, they can't get anyone to see them, so they go to these thousands of film festivals. So I still believe that even though a young kid might be able to make a masterpiece or something that changes the direction of cinema, the issue of how to get it to people is still not solved.

  Francis Ford Coppola

  Beautiful, Believe, Kids

  Interview with Tim Ryan, editorial.rottentomatoes.com. October 15, 2010.

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• Once in a rare while, you get to read a story of such breathtaking beauty and intelligence that you remember why you love to read. The Anatomy Lesson is just such a novel. In stunning prose, Nina Siegal animates Rembrandt's first masterpiece, spinning a deeply affecting tale of love, loss and redemption as she reveals the secrets of the human soul. It is a gorgeous literary page turner of immense sympathy and elegance, equal in artistic lan to its inspiration. Brava!

  Robin Oliveira

  Inspiration, Loss, Soul

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• Awareness of approach to death can be a beautiful thing, a frame into which we can put the work of art that is our life, our personal masterpiece.

  June Singer

  Beautiful, Spiritual, Art

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• I don't sleep with a violin in my bed, but there is something very magical about the instrument. You open up the case; it's a masterpiece, it's gorgeous, the varnish is still there from 300 years ago. People who know violins, they look at it and it's almost like a face.

  Joshua Bell

  Sleep, Years, People

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• We are capable of creating miracles ourselves and the greatest miracle is to create a masterpiece of joy out of your life with no excuses. The thing I focus on is going straight to heart. I go to mine first because if I don't feel it, you're not going to feel it. I take a deep breath and remind myself that before I give it to you I have to give it to myself.

  Carlos Santana

  Heart, Creating, Giving

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• Many artists and writers have used cannabis for creative stimulation - from the writers of the world's religious masterpieces to our most irreverent satirists.

  Jack Herer

  Religious, Artist, Creative

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• Don't hire a master to paint you a masterpiece and then assign a roomful of schoolboy artists to look over his shoulder and make suggestions.

  Robert Townsend

  Artist, Suggestions, Looks

  Robert Townsend (1970). “Up The Organization”

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• These days it seems like any idiot with a laptop computer can churn out a business book and make a few bucks. That's certainly what I'm hoping. It would be a real letdown if the trend changed before this masterpiece goes to print.

  Scott Adams

  Real, Book, Trends

  Scott Adams (1996). “The Dilbert principle: a cubicle's-eye view of bosses, meetings, management fads & other workplace afflictions”

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• It is through Christianity that Judaism has really conquered the world. Christianity is the masterpiece of Judaism.

  Ernest Renan

  World, Christianity, Judaism

  Ernest Renan, Joseph Henry Allen, Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer (1896). “History of the People of Israel ...: Period of Jewish independence and Judea under Roman rule. 1895”

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• The love of a father is one of nature's greatest masterpieces.

  Helen Lowrie Marshall

  Father

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• I try to play, always, beautiful games...always I wanted to create masterpieces.

  Garry Kasparov

  Beautiful, Games, Play

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• Los Padres have everything and the people have nothing; 'tis the masterpiece of reason and justice. For my part, I know nothing so divine as Los Padres who make war on Kings of Spain and Portugal and in Europe act as their confessors; who here kill Spaniards and at Madrid send them to Heaven.

  Voltaire

  Kings, War, Europe

  Francois Voltaire (1977). “The Portable Voltaire”, p.152, Penguin

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• By Cunning & Craft is a masterpiece of writing about writing. If, like Scheherazade, you had to spin out a story under threat of death, this is the how-to book to read. It's filled with thoughtful, nuanced advice from a teacher/writer who actually writes, and writes beautifully and with great humor. The list of rejected stories is worth the price of the whole book.

  Nora Gallagher

  Teacher, Book, Writing

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• I would love to be able to write a tragedy in my imagination--it would turn into a masterpiece.

  Franz Grillparzer

  Writing, Imagination, Tragedy

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• I can't remember coming across a more precise evocation of innocence lost since Golding's The Lord of the Flies. With The Death of Sweet Mister, Daniel Woodrell has written his masterpiece-spare, dark, and incandescently beautiful. It broke my heart.

  Dennis Lehane

  Beautiful, Sweet, Heart

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• You want every movie to be a hit. But every painting isn’t a masterpiece.

  Will Ferrell

  Want, Painting

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• The sincere love of books has nothing to do with cleverness or stupidity any more than any other sincere love. It is a quality of character, a freshness, a power of pleasure, a power of faith. A silly person may delight in reading masterpieces just as a silly person may delight in picking flowers. A fool may be in love with a poet as he may be in love with a woman.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Flower, Silly, Book

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• I know the woman has no soul, I know The woman has no possibilities Of soul or mind or heart, but merely is The masterpiece of flesh: well, be it so. It is her flesh that I adore; I go Thirsting afresh to drain her empty kiss. I know she cannot love: it is not this My vanquished heart implores in overthrow. Tyrannously I crave, I crave alone, Her splendid body, Earth's most eloquent Music, divinest human harmony; Her body now a silent instrument, That 'neath my touch shall wake and make for me The strains I have but dreamed of, never known.

  Arthur Symons

  Women, Heart, Kissing

  Arthur Symons (1919). “Poems”

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• No one ever got ahead by going through the motions. You have to constantly be improving yourself. Make your life the masterpiece you want it to be.

  Queen Latifah

  Want, Improving Yourself, Improving

  Queen Latifah (2010). “Put on Your Crown: Life-Changing Moments on the Path to Queendom”, p.16, Hachette UK

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• composition is notation of distortion of what composers think they've heard before. Masterpieces are marvelous misquotations.

  Ned Rorem

  Thinking, Distortion, Composer

  Ned Rorem (2013). “The Paris Diary & The New York Diary: 1951–1961”, p.53, Open Road Media

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• We know that Las Vegas is junk, but at the same time I think that exactly the same process and ultimately also, perhaps the same logic, attaches itself to or underlies our masterpieces. We live in an amazing era when in spite of an absence of masters there is an explosion of masterpieces.

  Rem Koolhaas

  Thinking, Vegas, Junk

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• Literature is a vast forest and the masterpieces are the lakes, the towering trees or strange trees, the lovely, eloquent flowers, the hidden caves, but a forest is also made up of ordinary trees, patches of grass, puddles, clinging vines, mushrooms, and little wildflowers.

  Roberto Bolano

  Flower, Lakes, Mushrooms

  "2666: A Novel". Book by Roberto Bolaño, 2008.

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• Painting seems an old man's business. After a certain time you're out of it, and you just paint masterpieces.

  Alex Katz

  Men, Painting, Masters

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