The Sovereign Artist Quotes

“I’m convinced that the best things in life are:

Red wine, honey, Croatian olive oil, being self-employed, love, old books, the Bialetti Moka pot, sunsets, and living in a neighborhood that wasn’t planned by modernist architects.

Anything else is strictly unnecessary.”
― Vizi Andrei, The Sovereign Artist: Meditations on Lifestyle Design

“You’re free if and only if you failed to make the transition from the playground to the workplace.”
― Vizi Andrei, The Sovereign Artist: Meditations on Lifestyle Design

“The education system teaches us to be specialists; but the real world is whispering that we need generalists and polymaths.”
― Vizi Andrei, The Sovereign Artist: Meditations on Lifestyle Design

“Being antimodern doesn’t mean conservative or traditionalist.

It has nothing to do with being nostalgic about the past. But it has nothing to do with nihilism, relativism, or knee-jerk contrarianism either.

Being antimodern means to be nostalgic about the future.

It’s about reinventing tradition, bridging the gap between the sacred and the profane, sympathetically merging timeless truths with modern drama.

The goal is to be totally avant-garde yet cemented in tradition.”
― Vizi Andrei, The Sovereign Artist: Meditations on Lifestyle Design

“Philosophers have questions. Scientists have theories.

Entrepreneurs have projects. Artists have obsessions.

And amateurs have ideas.”
― Vizi Andrei, The Sovereign Artist: Meditations on Lifestyle Design

“Logic, if used as the main instrument for thinking, frustrates the functions of the mind—it doesn’t improve them.

Great ideas are the result of undirected curiosity, creativity, serendipity, and higher pleasures.”
― Vizi Andrei, The Sovereign Artist: Meditations on Lifestyle Design

“If you’re not obsessed with tradition; if you don’t understand it—you will never be able to innovate.

You won’t come up with anything original if you don’t take the time to study what’s truly timeless and perennial.

You can’t blossom if you’re at war with your roots.

Your work will not last; it will likely be hollow and meaningless.”
― Vizi Andrei, The Sovereign Artist: Meditations on Lifestyle Design

“The greatest accomplishment of a human, a busy primate, is to be able to spend hours and hours without doing anything.”
― Vizi Andrei, The Sovereign Artist: Meditations on Lifestyle Design

“My best thoughts came to me through revelation—while taking long walks in the countryside, sipping wine and watching the sun go down, or doing nothing on my balcony other than admiring the view.

Almost nothing of value ever came to me sitting at my desk, through the instrument of reason. My office helps me be productive—that’s indeed where the “hard” work gets done—but seldom creative.

Most ideas produced in my office are inevitably flawed, corrupted, and easy to dismantle.”
― Vizi Andrei, The Sovereign Artist: Meditations on Lifestyle Design

“We work hard and for long hours to reap the benefits that may only be enjoyed occasionally—during strict intervals or whenever they got scheduled in the (sometimes very distant) future:

We’re waiting for the weekend, next vacation, or retirement!

This makes us end up with a chronic condition…

We constantly postpone the zest and will to love life.”
― Vizi Andrei, The Sovereign Artist: Meditations on Lifestyle Design

“My reason is simply a greedy lawyer hired by my guilty instincts, feelings, and values to prove them innocent. This lawyer is responsible to conserve and protect my identity from sudden changes. If I adjust my beliefs too quickly and too often—I risk going insane. I’m open-minded only in the sense that my mind is closed by openable windows.”
― Vizi Andrei, The Sovereign Artist: Meditations on Lifestyle Design

“Measure wisdom in risks taken, exposure to challenges, not years.

A young wolf is wiser than an old dog.”
― Vizi Andrei, The Sovereign Artist: Meditations on Lifestyle Design

“Skepticism is the elegance of wisdom—but too much skepticism gets you drunk with impasse. You want to be a risk-taker who loves uncertainty.

Skepticism doesn’t mean inaction but rather taking advantage of your doubts and questions—turning them into gold and profit.”
― Vizi Andrei, The Sovereign Artist: Meditations on Lifestyle Design

“Originality is what happens when you steal ideas you don’t understand and hence misinterpret.”
― Vizi Andrei, The Sovereign Artist: Meditations on Lifestyle Design