A Quote by John Cage

We are simple-minded enough to think that if we were saying something we would use words. We are rather doing something. The meaning of what we do is determined by each one who sees and hears it.
I tried to instill a different motivation, to give them the security and the conviction that they were doing something good, something necessary, something useful - if you want to use a grandiose expression, that they were doing something for peace.
It's not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would much rather you weren't doing.
Each morning sees some task begun, each evening sees it close; Something attempted, something done, has earned a night's repose.
When I was younger I was looking for this magic meaning of life. It's very simple now. Making the lives of others better, doing something of lasting value. That's the meaning of life, it's that simple.
And people get all fouled up because they want the world to have meaning as if it were words... As if you had a meaning, as if you were a mere word, as if you were something that could be looked up in a dictionary. You are meaning.
The man who sees little always sees less than there is to see; the man who hears badly always hears something more than there is to hear.
Film schools are not rigorous enough. They let things get by and kids get out there and they think they are saying something and doing something.
You're always going to have somebody that's saying something about you in a negative form or fashion. I think for each and every individual you try to use that to push you, to motivate you whether it really meant something to you, whether it didn't.
One of the things that slightly annoys me in business is that we use words like innovation. Young people often think innovation is about doing something new, but actually it's not. It's about doing something better than your competition.
Whether they love me or don't love me, they think I know what I'm doing and that people aren't gonna be taking advantage of the country. So if I had my choice, I'd love to keep doing what I'm doing. The country is in serious, serious trouble, like it's never been before. And that's why I'm saying: Would I rather stay in Trump Tower? Would I rather stay and lead the life I'm leading - and you know something about my life. It's very good.
Insecure managers create complexity. Frightened, nervous managers use thick convoluted planning books and busy slides filled with everything they’ve known since childhood……. They worry that if they’re simple, people will think they’re simple minded. In reality, of course, it’s just the reverse. Clear, tough minded people are the most simple.
I was wondering how you were going to punish me for not confiding in you. Punishment, actually, is something I've thought about for a long time. What form of punishment would be enough for what I did? Imprisonment? Death? Something else? Something scarier? I could only think of so many horrible tortures before they stopped having meaning. But you' you've come up with a punishment I never considered. You're going to sulk me to death.
There is something myopic and stunted in focussing only on the meaning of words and sentences. And this myopia is especially unfortunate when combined with a rather abstract view of a language as a set of elements and rules for combining these. For the result is to divorce enquiry into meaning from attention to the way words - and gestures, facial expressions, rituals and so on - are embedded in practices, in what Wittgenstein called 'the stream of life'.
So I was determined to use my last two years in college doing something I thought I would enjoy, which was acting. And it was probably because there was girls over in the drama school too, you know?
How can music without any words make you think? I listen to jazz when I'm doing something else. I use it for background music, I don't just sit down and concentrate on it. Lyrics, words - that's what makes me think.
Something good happened to my writing when I stopped being afraid to do something simple, for the fear that people might think I couldn't do something more complex. Don't be confused by the word simple. Simple is not easy, it is clear voiced, and fearlessly elegant.
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