A Quote by Elizabeth Bowen

... artists were intended to be an ornament to society. As a society in themselves they are unthinkable.

Elizabeth Bowen

Quote Topics

Artists Intended Ornament Society Themselves Unthinkable Were

Quote Author

Elizabeth Bowen
Irish - Novelist
June 7, 1899 - February 22, 1973

In every society, the artists will be the ones who set themselves up as contrary to whatever the society expects.

Jane Smiley

A dreaded society is not a civilized society. The most progressive and powerful society in the civilized sense, is a society which has recognized its ethos, and come to terms with the past and the present, with religion and science. With modernism and mysticism, with materialism and spirituality; a society free of tension, a society rich in culture. Such a society cannot come with hocus-pocus formulas and with fraud. It has to flow from the depth of a divine search.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

And, because my role in society - or any artist or poet's role - is to try to express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel, not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all. And it's like that's the job of the artist in society, not to...they're not some alienated being living on the outskirts of town. It's fine to live on the outskirts of town, but artists must reflect what we all are. … If that's taken it too much on meself, I feel that artists are that - they're reflections of society... Mirrors.

John Lennon

Modern children were considerably less innocent than parents and the larger society supposed, and postmodern children are less competent than their parents and the society as a whole would like to believe. . . . The perception of childhood competence has shifted much of the responsibility for child protection and security from parents and society to children themselves.

David Elkind

Burmese authors and artists can play the role that artists everywhere play. They help to mold the outlook of a society - not the whole outlook and they are not the only ones to mold the outlook of society, but they have an important role to play there. And I think if they take up this role seriously and link it to the kind of changes were wish to bring about in our country they could be a tremendous help.

Aung San Suu Kyi

Education in British schools isn't good enough. It's not remotely imaginative enough. It lets down too many children, excluding them from society, and, as I've often said, people who are excluded from society tend to express themselves in ways not acceptable to society.

Richard Rogers

The classics of Marxism talked of communism as a society to which a modern society should aspire, a society truly fair, where the relations of monetary exchange were not the priority but one wher the people's needs could be satisfied, and where people would not be worth more according to how much monetary wealth they acquired. Instead their value would be based on their contribution to society as a whole. It would be a society without class that would accept people based on their capabilities and their potential to contribute to that society.

Alejandro Castro Espin

At one and the same time, therefore, society is everything and society is nothing. Society is the most powerful concoction in the world and society has no existence whatsoever

Virginia Woolf

A crowded society is a restrictive society; an overcrowded society becomes an authoritarian, repressive and murderous society.

Edward Abbey

He might have proved a useful adjunct, if not an ornament to society.

Charles Lamb

In a repressed society, artists fulfil a sense of harking back to instant gratification, or immediate expression, by doing things that function on the edge of society, or outside of what is conventionally accepted.

Bat for Lashes

Well, Daddy, I used to believe that artists went crazy in the process of creating the beautiful works of art that kept society sane. Nowadays, though, artists make intentionally ugly art that’s only supposed to reflect society rather than inspire it. So I guess we’re all loony together now, loony rats in the shithouse of commercialism.

Tom Robbins

Advertising and the free society are closely connected. Advertising helps to make a free society remain so by increasing competition, and by helping to maintain the freedom of the mass media themselves. The free society is one where advertising and advertising agencies are likely to be in considerable demand, though it is true that even in a totally centralist society there would still be a need for organisations and people to have access to mass communication media.

John Treasure

Journalists were never intended to be the cheerleaders of a society, the conductors of applause, the sycophants. Tragically, that is their assigned role in authoritarian societies, but not here - not yet.

Chet Huntley

Can someone within that society walk into the town square and say what they want without fear of being punished for his or her views? If so, then that society is a free society. If not, it is a fear society.