A Quote by Charles Horton Cooley

To desire to be an artist is to desire to be a complete man in respect to some one function, to realize yourself utterly. A man is a poor thing who is content not to be an artist.

Charles Horton Cooley

Quote Topics

Artist Complete Content Desire Function Man Poor Realize Respect Some Thing Utterly Yourself

Quote Author

Charles Horton Cooley
American - Sociologist
1866 - 1928

The desire to build a house is the tired wish of a man content thenceforward with a single anchorage. The desire to build a boat is the desire of youth, unwilling yet to accept the idea of a final resting place.

Arthur Ransome

Let not a man do what his sense of right bids him not to do, nor desire what it forbids him to desire. This is sufficient. The skillful artist will not alter his measures for the sake of a stupid workman.

Mencius

For just as for a flute-player, a sculptor, or an artist, and, in general, for all things that have a function or activity, the good and the well is thought to reside in the function, so would it seem to be for man, if he has a function.

Aristotle

Men are not rich or poor according to what they possess but to what they desire. The only rich man is he that with content enjoys a competence.

Roger Chamberlain

I get up every morning with a desire to do some creative work. This desire is made of the same stuff as the sexual desire, the desire to make money, or any other desire.

Isaac Bashevis Singer

To be an artist you have to give up everything, including the desire to be a good artist.

Jasper Johns

...Desire, a function central to all human experience, is the desire for nothing nameable. And at the same time this desire lies at the origin of every variety of animation. If being were only what it is, there wouldn’t even be room to talk about it. Being comes into existence as an exact function of this lack.

Jacques Lacan

Very few persons, comparatively, know how to Desire with sufficient intensity. They do not know what it is to feel and manifest that intense, eager, longing, craving, insistent, demanding, ravenous Desire which is akin to the persistent, insistent, ardent, overwhelming desire of the drowning man for a breath of air; of the shipwrecked or desert-lost man for a drink of water; of the famished man for bread and meat.

Robert Collier

For the rational, psychologically healthy man, the desire for pleasure is the desire to celebrate his control over reality. For the neurotic, the desire for pleasure is the desire to escape from reality.

Nathaniel Branden

Our desire for interconnectedness, our desire to be seen, our desire to be acknowledged, our desire to be liked - these are all deep needs, these survival instincts we've evolved to function in a tribal society.

Weyes Blood

Frigidity is desire imagined by a woman who doesnt desire the man offering himself to her. Its the desire of a woman for a man who hasnt yet come to her, whom she doesnt yet know. Shes faithful to this stranger even before she belongs to him. Frigidity is the non-desire for whatever is not him.

Marguerite Duras

Desire is something very egoistic. If you desire something, you also have to take the consequences of that. You have to study the market and see how it can go. I mean to become an artist... You never get the Nobel-price for example. You can normally never become a millionaire. Very few become millionaires, so the circumstances are very bad if one becomes an artist. And that should be taken into consideration.

Odd Nerdrum

I learned how difficult it is to be an artist. There are always compromises. The record company wants you to do this, your fans want you to do this, your family, you can't concentrate on your work. It's a hard thing to be an artist and not give up. That's why I have so much respect for people like Dylan and Neil Young and Tom Waits, because they keep at it. I have a new respect for a true artist.

Robert Hilburn

Celebration is not because some desire is fulfilled - because no desire is ever fulfilled. Desire as such cannot be fulfilled. Desire is only a way to avoid the present moment. Desire creates the future and takes you far away. Desire is a drug; it keeps you stoned, it does not allow you to see the reality - that which is herenow.