Not The Critic

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly.
So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." - T. Roosevelt

Truth

"The soul is the perciever of truth,
We know truth when we see it."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Blessed are the ears that do not hear the truth sounding without,
but hear clearly the voice within teaching the truth."
Thomas a Kempis

Soul Mates

"Union is only possible to those who are units."
Margaret Fuller, "Women in the 19th Century",1844, a classic of feminist thought

The Circle

"He drew a circle that shut me out.
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win;
We drew a circle that took him in."
Edwin Markham



"Ah, great it is to believe the dream as we stand in youth by the starry stream; but a greater thing is to fight life through and say at the end, the dream is true!"
Edwin Markham

Quote

Divine Inspiration

"I've been no more than a medium, as it were."
Henri Matisse

Everything vanishes around me, and my works are born as if out of the void. Ripe, graphic fruits fall off. My hand has become the obedient instrument of a remote will."
Paul Klee

"Like every writer, I am asked where my work originates, and if I knew I would go there more often to find more."
Henry Miller

"I have been surprised at the observations made by some of my characters. It seems as if an occult Power was moving the pen. The personage does or says something, and I ask, how the dickens did he come up with that?"
William Makepeace Thackeray

Chance and Discovery

"One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time."
Andre Gide

"Chance is always powerful. Let your hook always be cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish."
Ovid

"Did you ever observe to whom the accidents happen? Chance favors only the prepared mind."
Louis Pasteur

"A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind."
Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars."
Les Brown

Imagination

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
Albert Einstein

Inspired

"The poet is a light and winged and holy thing and there is no invention in him until he's been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him."
Socrates

Picasso

"The important thing is to create. Nothing else matters; creation is all."
Pablo Picasso

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."
Pablo Picasso

"The painter's studio should be a laboratory. There one does not make art in the manner of a monkey, one invents. Painting is a play of the mind."
Pablo Picasso

Art and The Soul

"In the heart of the artist is a studio. The soul works constantly there, shuttling between heaven and hell, spirit and matter. Each moment, every sound, vision, taste, smell and feeling is a brilliant creation dynamically colored with emotion and meaning. In reverie, the artist enters the studio of the heart and is awed by the soul's work. The artist then labors to bring these revelations into tangible form. Angels and demons compete to lift the artist's hand."
Alex Grey

This artist has written several books on the subject of creative inspiration and some of his passages are most extraordinary.