Art is a monument of humanity, of its spiritual existence, through which man affirms his passage through history, as he also affirms through science.
Art that is not animated by the desire to create something outside of itself, that does not aim to communicate, to echo in consciousnesses and existences, is not art.
It has been said that the artist reaches his own sie. Not true. The artist who says it is possessed by a pathetic pride. The artist who believes it, is not an artist. If he had not needed the most universal of our languages, the artist would not have created it. No one needs the presence and approval of people more than he.
Art has, since its humblest beginnings, been the realization of the presentiments of some, responding to the needs of all. She forced the universe to reveal to her the laws that enabled us to gradually establish the rule of spirit in the universe. Emanating from humanity, it revealed to humanity its understanding of itself.
Art has its roots in man's need to express himself. This need for expression is, it seems, an instinct of man, bestowed upon him in order that the experiences and feelings of the individual may be preserved for the species.
I accept the difference between one who writes poetry and a good poet.
Art is the indispensable means of merging the individual with the whole. It reflects his infinite capacity to associate, to share experiences and ideas.
Art enables man to understand reality, it helps not only to bear it, but also increases his determination to make it more humane, more worthy of the human race. Art is itself a social necessity.
All art is determined by its era and represents humanity insofar as it corresponds to the ideas and aspirations, needs and hopes of a particular historical situation. But at the same time art transcends this limit and, in its historical moment, it also creates a moment of humanity.
If safeguarding peace is the great common task (and it seems to be), then socialist art must not focus its attention only on the internal problems of socialist countries, but must address itself to the whole world and make an essential contribution to universal art ... Although we belong to different social systems, although our goals and ideas are different, after all we still live in the same world.
Man, made man by work, emerging as a wizard from animality, man throwing over nature the cloak of art, man the creator of an afterlife and a society, will forever remain the great magician. Prometheus who steals the fire from Heaven for Earth, Orpheus who lulls nature to sleep with the charm of his melody. Art can only die if humanity disappears.
Art... Its function is always to move the total man, to allow the "I" to identify with the life of another, to become what it is not, but could still be.
Man... will always need science to wrest from nature all the secrets and see the possible laws. And he will forever need art to feel at ease not only in his own part of reality that his imagination tells him he does not yet master.
The morality of art lies in its very beauty.
We can only understand each other superficially, we cannot develop ourselves even if we want to; what we call privacy is only an expedient; perfect knowledge is an illusion. But in a novel we can know people perfectly and. .. we find here a compensation for their opacity in real life. In this sense, fiction is truer than history.
The only lasting works are the works of circumstance. And, to be fair, there are no works of circumstance either, because they all also depend on how they were created. It is impossible to love them with intelligent love unless we know the time, place, and circumstances of their origin.
It's hard to admire something without some illusion, and those who understand a masterpiece create it in themselves once more. The same works are reflected in a special way in the souls who contemplate them. Each human generation seeks a new emotion in front of the works of the old masters.
Any book has as many different copies as there are readers...
The pleasure produced by a work is the only measure of its merits.
There is no poetry except in the desire for the impossible or in the regret for the irreparable.
Poetry must be born from life, naturally. Just as the tree, the flower and the fruit come out of the ground.
To understand a masterpiece is to create it within yourself anew.
The poet: ... an evocator. When we understand him, we are as much poets as he.
In order to see which of two manifestations of art is more valuable, we need to know what that art aims at and to what extent a work of art fulfills this purpose...
Like science, in art we can put forward our belief that truth cannot be harmful or lead to immorality.
I am beginning to believe that the only philosophers of contemporary time are the peerless writers, I mean - the only ones who still dare to ask questions and seek answers to these questions, but their cries do not reach the ears of those who determine their destiny (I would even be mighty curious to see what a statistic of the books of the head, which the great despots and great generals of the world would read, however seldom!), and the plebeians (these writers) ignore or treat as madmen.
The poet brings, too, what philosophers have always sought: evidence - raw truths, good anytime and anywhere...
In reality, these records of the poets did not suffer the fluctuations of history, did not know the embarrassing epilogues, were not swept away by the changing and successive certainties. They survived, survive and will survive...
While the physics of the Ionians, the astronomy of Aristotle, the political, economic, theistic systems have collapsed—as those of today will collapse in a dismal tomorrow—the records of Homer, of Sophocles, of Aeschylus, all the assertions poets satisfy something alive in us, a restlessness of the heart by which we recognize life.
Poetry is a necessity and not a pleasure, an act and not a relaxation; the poet affirms, poetry is an affirmation of reality...