A Quote by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite

I should have been a much better artist if I could have studied more and amused myself less. — © Ida Rentoul Outhwaite
I should have been a much better artist if I could have studied more and amused myself less.
When I was young, I played the piano and studied classical music and jazz. I wanted to be a concert pianist, and if I'd devoted myself to it, I could have been. But it would have been too much work and a very lonely life.
Think of US slavery in 1850, or the subjection of women. Both of these injustices could have been - and were! - defended by pointing out, quite correctly, that this situation of slaves and women had been improving throughout the preceding century. Slaves, in particular, were worked less hard, beaten and raped less frequently, better fed, and less often ripped apart from their families. So would a celebration of moral progress have been appropriate in 1850? Surely not. Slavery could have been and should have been abolished - then, if not before.
The notion that the great artist requires a great patron has been around since the Pharaohs. That the born patron also needs an artist to patronize is a less-studied phenomenon.
The key to a better life: Complain less, appreciate more. Whine less, laugh more. Talk less, listen more. Want less, give more. Hate less, love more. Scold less, praise more. Fear less, hope more.
In our time, we have become too interested in the artist and his or her character and experience as a way of understanding art. In my view, you should be able to read a book or see a film without knowing a single thing about conditions or circumstances or character of the artist, and experience the work to the full without such information. Sometimes I feel - speaking for myself - that people know much too much about me, and I wish people knew less and could just read these books and respond to them purely as words on a page.
If a man is rich and strong anywhere, it must be on his native soil. Here I have been these forty years learning the language of these fields that I may the better express myself. If I should travel to the prairies, I should much less understand them, and my past life would serve me but ill to describe them. Many a weed here stands for more of life to me than the big trees of California would if I should go there. We need only travel enough to give our intellects an airing.
I just want to prove that I am really good at something. And I haven't quite done that yet - at least not to myself. I know I could ride so much better, with more ease, with more finesse. I feel I'm nowhere near as good as I should be.
I have always done my sketches, as people would say, for the fun of it... I have worked to amuse myself, and if it has amused the public as well, so much the better for me.
When the artist is truly the servant of the work, the work is better than the artist; Shakespeare knew how to listen to his work, and so he often wrote better than he could write; Bach composed more deeply, more truly than he knew, Rembrandt's brush put more of the human spirit on canvas than Rembrandt could comprehend. When the work takes over, then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the work takes over, then the artist listens.
I've remained a supporter of the Obama administration, even at the height of my ordeal. There's a lot that he could do differently, but so much of what he's tried to do has been blocked by the Republican officeholders. I think that he could have been a much better president with more support. So, I'm still supportive of him.
Thanks be to God. Since my leaving the drinking of wine, I do find myself much better, and do mind my business better, and do spend less money, and less time lost in idle company.
Thanks be to God, since my leaving drinking of wine, I do find myself much better, and do mind my business better, and do spend less money, and less time lost in idle company.
Statistics is, or should be, about scientific investigation and how to do it better, but many statisticians believe it is a branch of mathematics. Now I agree that the physicist, the chemist, the engineer, and the statistician can never know too much mathematics, but their objectives should be better physics, better chemistry, better engineering, and in the case of statistics, better scientific investigation. Whether in any given study this implies more or less mathematics is incidental.
I think that I have grown a lot as an artist. I have been writing about my experiences of love and overcoming the struggles that I have faced in the music industry. I have so much more to tell my fans, and I know so much more about myself. It is crazy how much I have grown over these past years.
What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.
I used to pre-rehearse everything and then bring my pre-rehearsed performance to the set. Now, I'm learning to let it happen in the moment. American actors are much better at that than British actors. If I knew how to trust myself, I would have been much more relaxed. Maybe I would have less gray hairs today.
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