We need new art. Old art cannot do that. It can do lots of other things, and of course humanity hasn't changed that much in the last thousand or two thousand years.So that the old Greek dramas are still at the very heart, core, of human experience, but still we need new stuff.
It is obvious that art cannot teach anyone anything, since in four thousand years humanity has learnt nothing at all. We should long ago have become angels had we been capable of paying attention to the experience of art, and allowing ourselves to be changed in accordance with the ideals it expresses. Art only has the capacity, through shock and catharsis, to make the human soul receptive to good. It’s ridiculous to imagine that people can be taught to be good…Art can only give food – a jolt – the occasion – for psychical experience.
The human race is just getting started.... The cerebral cortex is only a hundred thousand years old. It's still a baby, sucking teat and eating Cheerios. We might get better, maybe even wise, if we can last another thousand years.
D.H. Lawrence says that myths are "inexhaustible" because they are symbols of heart mysteries. That is, they can't be exhausted - they somehow have embodied some central human mystery (love, loss, being a body in time, who knows which or what?) and thus can be retold infinitely and still be rich. That's part of your saying: it's old, but it's also new. Or: there's nothing "new" in the human heart, but it still matters lots.
The thing about new things is you feel new when you buy them, you feel as though you are somebody different because you own something different. We are our possessions, you know. There are people who get addicted to buying new stuff. Things. Piles and piles of things. But the new things become old things so quickly. We need new things to replace the old things.
Just over two thousand years ago, this planet went through a change, and it's a normal thing for every two thousand three hundred years a planet to go through a new change; new laws, new things is happening.
When you are 28, 29 years old... you are aware that this is going to be your last big contract of your career. You have to make up your mind: What is it that I want? Do I want to find something new, a new culture, a new league, a new language, new teammates, a new city? And what is it that I need to be happy? What is it that I need to perform?
Objects of every sort are materials for the new art: paint, food, chairs, electric and neon lights, smoke, water, old socks, a dog, movies, a thousand other things which will be discovered by the present generation of artists.
I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven't changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must still try to learn from history. History is ourselves.
Movies are brand new. Film is less than 150 years old. It's brand new, compared to any other art form, all of which are thousands of years old.
Old things need not be therefore true, O brother men, nor yet the new; Ah! still awhile the old thought retain, And yet consider it again!
I am the son of two civilizations that at a certain age in history have formed a happy marriage. The first of these, seven thousand years old, is the Pharaonic civilization; the second, one thousand four hundred years old, is the Islamic civilization.
I am an old-fashioned preacher of the old-time religion, that has warmed this cold world's heart for two thousand years.
I lived for a couple of years when I was 9 years old on beautiful Aboriginal sacred land in a town of a thousand people in northwestern Australia. It's where the Aborigines are still very connected to their culture, the Dreamtime culture. It was really quite a special experience.
FBI laboratory scientists said Sunday they have determined that the anthrax mailed to Senate offices last fall was fresh. They say it's only two years old. If the stuff is two years old and it's still fresh, it's not anthrax, it's Velveeta.
It is obvious that art cannot teach anyone anything, since in four thousand years humanity has learnt nothing at all.
As tradition, the female element clings to the old art and opposes anything new - precisely because each new art moves further away from the natural appearance of things.