A Quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We amuse ourselves painting our prison-walls with bright figures and brilliant landscapes. — © Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
We amuse ourselves painting our prison-walls with bright figures and brilliant landscapes.
I am reminded, now, of Leonardo's advice to painters: You should fix your eyes, he says, on certain walls stained with damp. You will see in these the likenesses of divine landscapes, adorned with mountains, ruins, rocks, extensive plains; and you will see there battles and strange figures engaged in violent actions. For in such walls the same thing happens as in the sound of church bells, in whose reverberations you may find every word imaginable.
I've always been painting, even as a little girl I was painting on the doors and walls of our house.
We think that by protecting ourselves from suffering, we are being kind to ourselves. The truth is we only become more fearful, more hardened and more alienated. We experience ourselves as being separate from the whole. This separateness becomes like a prison for us - a prison that restricts us to our personal hopes and fears, and to caring only for the people nearest to us. Curiously enough, if we primarily try to shield ourselves from discomfort, we suffer. Yet, when we don't close off, when we let our hearts break, we discover our kinship with all beings.
True Socialism, in which everyone is truly equal, does not just resemble a prison - it is a prison. It can not exist unless it is surrounded by high walls, by watchtowers and by guard-dogs, for people always want to escape from any socialist regime, just as they do from a prison. If you continue your attempts to establish a model society you will need to build walls around it. You will be forced to do so sooner or later by the flood of refugees.
(Landscapes) are too close to painting. And TV has nothing to do with painting. It's just transmission. And you can't transmit a landscape, happily enough.
PRISON, n. A place of punishments and rewards. The poet assures us that - stone walls do not a prison make.
We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us, but for ours to amuse them...
We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us, but for ours to amuse them.
When you look at a wall spotted with stains...you may discover a resemblance to various landscapes, beautiful with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees. Or again, you may see battles and figures in action, or strange faces and costumes, and an endless variety of objects which you could reduce to complete and well-drawn figures.
Some time in our lives every man and woman of us, putting out our hands toward the stars, touch on either side our prison walls the immutable limitations of temperament
My secret pleasure is painting these little mini figures that you send into battle - they're called Warhammer figures. It's the nerdiest thing in the world, but it's a lot of fun. It's relaxing; that's the main reason I do it.
We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide. Most of all we love and want to be loved. We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give. We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.
An intelligent, energetic, educated woman cannot be kept in four walls - even satin-lined, diamond-studded walls - without discovering sooner or later that they are still a prison cell.
When you're in prison, the progress of the outside world doesn't necessarily translate inside prison walls. You don't have any rights; it just doesn't progress along the same timeline.
If life has given us no more than a prison cell, let's at least decorate it as best we can-with the shadows of our dreams, their colourful patterns engraving our oblivion on the static surface of the walls.
Only through art can we get outside of ourselves and know another's view of the universe which is not the same as ours and see landscapes which otherwise would remain unknown to us like the landscapes of the moon. Thanks to art, instead of seeing a single world, our own, we see it multiply until we have before us as many worlds as there are original artists.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!