WIST Quotations

Thoreau, Henry David -- A Week on the Concord and Marrimack Rivers, “Wednesday” (1849)

Dave — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 23:02:13 +0000

The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) American philosopher and writer
A Week on the Concord and Marrimack Rivers, “Wednesday” (1849)
(Source)

Stevenson, Robert Louis -- Essay (1888-09), “A Letter to a Young Gentleman Who Proposes to Embrace the Career of Art,” Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 3

Dave — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 18:06:41 +0000

To give the public what they do not want, and yet expect to be supported: we have there a strange pretension, and yet not uncommon, above all with painters. The first duty in this world is for a man to pay his way; when that is quite accomplished, he may plunge into what eccentricity he likes; but emphatically not till then.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Essay (1888-09), “A Letter to a Young Gentleman Who Proposes to Embrace the Career of Art,” Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 3
(Source)

Collected in Across the Plains, ch. 10 (1892).

Stevenson, Robert Louis -- Essay (1888-09), “A Letter to a Young Gentleman Who Proposes to Embrace the Career of Art,” Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 3

Dave — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 21:57:03 +0000

The book, the statue, the sonata, must be gone upon with the unreasoning good faith and the unflagging spirit of children at their play. Is it worth doing? — when it shall have occurred to any artist to ask himself that question, it is implicitly answered in the negative. It does not occur to the child as he plays at being a pirate on the dining-room sofa, nor to the hunter as he pursues his quarry; and the candour of the one and the ardour of the other should be united in the bosom of the artist.

Roosevelt, Eleanor -- Column (1958-11-05), “My Day”

Dave — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 17:23:19 +0000

The appreciation of many things in which we are not proficient ourselves but which we have learned to enjoy is one of the important things to cultivate in modern education. The arts in every field — music, drama, sculpture, painting — we can learn to appreciate and enjoy. We need not be artists, but we should be able to appreciate the work of artists.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) First Lady of the US (1933–1945), politician, diplomat, activist
Column (1958-11-05), “My Day”
(Source)

Barzun, Jacques -- Essay (1956), “Whirligig: Last Words on Berlioz,” The Energies of Art: Studies of Authors Classic and Modern,

Dave — Mon, 27 May 2024 14:37:49 +0000

The greatest artists have never been men of taste. By never sophisticating their instincts they have never lost the awareness of the great simplicities, which they relish both from appetite and from the challenge these offer to skill in competition with popular art.

Jacques Barzun (1907–2012) French-American historian, educator, polymath
Essay (1956), “Whirligig: Last Words on Berlioz,” The Energies of Art: Studies of Authors Classic and Modern,
(Source)

Update of an earlier, uncited essay.

Wilbur, Richard -- Acceptance Speech, National Book Award (1957)

Dave — Tue, 16 Aug 2022 16:30:26 +0000

When a poet is being a poet — that is, when he is writing or thinking about writing — he cannot be concerned with anything but the making of a poem. If the poem is to turn out well, the poet cannot have thought of whether it will be saleable, or of what its effect on the world should be; he cannot think of whether it will bring him honor, or advance a cause, or comfort someone in sorrow. All such considerations, whether silly or generous, would be merely intrusive; for, psychologically speaking, the end of writing is the poem itself.

Richard Wilbur (1921–2017) American poet, literary translator
Acceptance Speech, National Book Award (1957)

Bird, Brad -- Interview with Drew Tailor, IndieWire (20 Dec 2011)

Dave — Wed, 05 Feb 2020 17:26:18 +0000

If you explain the basics of any one of these ideas, they probably will sound as nutty as a cooking French rat or a silent film starring robots in a post-apocalyptic world. Each one of those films, when we were in preparation on them, the financial community said each one of them stunk and none of them had the ability to be a financial success. And then the film would come out and they’d go, “Well, they did it that time but the next one sounds like a piece of crap.”

Brad Bird (b. 1957) American director, animator and screenwriter [Phillip Bradley Bird]
Interview with Drew Tailor, IndieWire (20 Dec 2011)
(Source)

Maslow, Abraham -- Toward a Psychology of Being (1968 ed.)

Dave — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 01:48:55 +0000

A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.

Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) American psychologist
Toward a Psychology of Being (1968 ed.)

Lorde, Audre -- “My Words Will Be There”

Dave — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 15:07:47 +0000

Art is not living. It is a use of living.

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) American writer, feminist, civil rights activist
“My Words Will Be There”
(Source)

Brewster, Kingman -- “The Enduring American Press” symposium, Harvard (30 Oct 1964)

Dave — Mon, 12 Jan 2015 12:41:15 +0000

You and I know that there is a correlation between the creative and the screwball. So we must suffer the screwball gladly.

Kingman Brewster, Jr. (1919–1988) American educator, diplomat
“The Enduring American Press” symposium, Harvard (30 Oct 1964)

Shaftesbury, Earl of -- Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, Vol. 1, “A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm” (1711)

Dave — Fri, 05 Dec 2014 14:21:07 +0000

We may have an excellent Ear in Musick, without being able to perform in any kind. We may judge well of Poetry, without being Poets, or possessing the least of a Poetick Vein: But we can have no tolerable Notion of Goodness, without being tolerably good.

Anthony Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713) English politician and philosopher
Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, Vol. 1, “A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm” (1711)