Beauty & Perfection

All of life’s pleasures consist of getting a little closer to perfection,
and expressing life’s mysterious thrill a little better.
( Ravel )

He whose preoccupation is with excellence
longs fervently to find rest in perfection.
And is not nothingness a form of perfection?
( Thomas Mann )

The more perfect the artist,
the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers
and the mind which creates.
( TS Eliot )

Their [the Middle Ages] main aesthetic ideas and motives
were perfection, purpose, proportion, splendor, and sweetness.
( Paul Henry Lang )

I carry my thoughts about me for a long time,
often a very long time, before I write them down.
I make changes, reject and reattempt until I am satisfied.
( Beethoven )

Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed.
( William Blake )

Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome,
but until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful.
( Emerson )

They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.
( Oscar Wilde )

The finest works of art are precious, among other reasons,
because they make it possible for us to know,
if only imperfectly and for a little while,
what it actually feels like to think subtly and feel nobly.
( Aldous Huxley )

Beauty and fullness of tone can be achieved
by having the whole orchestra play with high clarinets
and a carefully selected number of piccolos.
( Mahler )

Art is a reality, not a definition; inasmuch as it approaches a reality,
it approaches perfection, and inasmuch as it approaches a mere definition,
it is imperfect and untrue.
( Benjamin Haydon )

The first question I ask myself
when something doesn't seem to be beautiful
is why do I think it's not beautiful.
And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.
( John Cage )

The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.
( Mendelssohn )

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity
in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.
( Albert Einstein )

Truth exists for the wise;
beauty for the susceptible heart.
They belong together –
are complementary.
( Beethoven )

Beauty is truth,
Truth beauty.
( Keats )

The artist is the creator of beautiful things
( Oscar Wilde )

I dedicated my life to beauty.
( Tosca )

We ascribe beauty to that which is simple,
which has no superfluous parts, which exactly answers its end,
which stands related to all things,
which is the mean of many extremes.
( Emerson )

The intellect of man is forced to choose
Perfection of the life, or of the work,
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.
( WB Yeats )

As for my working habits, I like the idea of perfection.
If a thing is not right it is done over and over again.
( Erich Korngold )

After all, a masterpiece is in no hurry.
It transcends time. It can be misunderstood or ignored –
all this is quite unimportant; and the time will come
when its beauty will be revealed without any outside assistance.
( Schönberg )

God exists in the details.
( Mies van der Rohe )

When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty.
I only think about how to solve the problem.
But when I have finished,
if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
( Buckminster Fuller )

A work of art that contains theories is like an object
on which the price tag has been left.
( Marcel Proust )

Music must humbly seek to please.
Extreme complication is contrary to art.
Beauty must appeal to the senses …
must insinuate itself into us without effort on our part.
( Debussy )

I find beauty in all things;
the great and the small,
the humble and the powerful.
Beauty is what all modern artists endeavor to develop
to the highest possible degree.
( Ravel )

BEAUTY

&

PERFECTION