Robert Poortinga > Robert's Quotes

“Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn’t have you by the throat.”
― Charles Bukowski

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
― Charles Bukowski

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
― Albert Camus

“Don’t walk in front of me… I may not follow
Don’t walk behind me… I may not lead
Walk beside me… just be my friend”
― Albert Camus

“I have not learned how often I
Can win, can love, but choose to die.”
― W.D. Snodgrass

“A truly great piano is one that enables you to convey deep emotion”
― Sviatoslav Richter

“I confess I do not believe in time. I like to fold my magic carpet, after use, in such a way as to superimpose one part of the pattern upon another. Let visitors trip. And the highest enjoyment of timelessness―in a landscape selected at random―is when I stand among rare butterflies and their food plants. This is ecstasy, and behind the ecstasy is something else, which is hard to explain. It is like a momentary vacuum into which rushes all that I love. A sense of oneness with sun and stone. A thrill of gratitude to whom it may concern―to the contrapuntal genius of human fate or to tender ghosts humoring a lucky mortal.”
― Vladimir Nabokov

“Dogs do not have many advantages over people, but one of them is extremely important: euthanasia is not forbidden by law in their case; animals have the right to a merciful death.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”
― Elie Wiesel

“A book read by a thousand different people is a thousand different books.”
― Andrei Tarkovsky

“The true artistic image is always based on the organic unity of
idea and form. Indeed, any imbalance between form and concept
will preclude the creation of an artistic image, for the work will
remain outside the realm of art.”
― Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time

“Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see, but it is impossible. Humans hide their secrets too well....”
― Rene Magritte

“The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.”
― William James

“If an artist wants to use his mind for creative work, cutting oneself off from society is a necessary thing”
― Glenn Gould

“Reading and writing are not education if they do not help people to be kind to all creatures”
― John Ruskin

“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives… Quality also marks the search for an ideal after necessity has been satisfied and mere usefulness achieved.”
― John Ruskin

“If you cannot understand why someone did something, look at the consequences—and infer the motivation.”
― Carl Jung