A Quote by William Blake
First thought is best in Art, second in other matters.
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God manifests himself to us in the first degree through the life of the universe, and in the second degree through the thought of man. The second manifestation is not less holy than the first. The first is named Nature, the second is named Art.
It is often said that second thoughts are best. So they are in matters of judgment but not in matters of conscience.
Two thoughts occur to just about any parent whose child is about to enter college. The first is, 'I can't believe how quickly the years have gone by.' The second: 'I can't believe how much it costs.' As one of those parents, I did my best to get past the disturbing first thought and tried to calm my churning stomach while dealing with the second.
my credo is very short. Its first article is art - and its second is art - and its third is art!
There is a conceptual depth as well as a purely visual depth. The first is discovered by science; the second is revealed in art. The first aids us in understanding the reasons of things; the second in seeing their forms. In science we try to trace phenomena back to their first causes, and to general laws and principles. In art we are absorbed in their immediate appearance, and we enjoy this appearance to the fullest extent in all its richness and variety. Here we are not concerned with the uniformity of laws but with the multiformity and diversity of intuitions.
In matters of conscience, first thoughts are best. In matters of prudence, last thoughts are best.
In all common ordinary cases, we see intuitively at first view what is out duty, what is the honest part. This is the ground of the observation, that the first thought is often the best. In these cases, doubt and deliberation is itself dishonesty; as it was in Balaam upon the second message.
Ed (Runge), you're the second best umpire in the league. The other twenty-three are tied for first.
When Nickelodeon, in 2009, told us they wanted us to come back and do another series where we could do whatever we wanted, the first thought we had was: Let's do a story about the next 'Avatar.' That was the first thought. The second thought was: Let's make it a girl.
A prince ought to have no other aim or thought, nor select anything else for his study, than war and its rules and discipline; for this is the sole art that belongs to him who rules, and it is of such force that it not only upholds those who are born princes, but it often enables men to rise from a private station to that rank. And, on the contrary, it is seen that when princes have thought more of ease than of arms they have lost their states. And the first cause of your losing it is to neglect this art; and what enables you to acquire a state is to be master of the art.
There are two men in me--one lives in the full sense of the word, the other reasons and passes judgment on the first. The first will perhaps take leave of you and the world forever in an hour now; and the second . . . the second?
The best things cannot be told because they transcend thought. The second best are misunderstood because they are the thoughts that are supposed to refer to that which cannot be thought about. The third best are what we talk about.
It's as if scientists exert every effort of will they possess deliberately to find the least significant problems in the world and explain them. Art matters. Happiness matters. Love matters. Good matters. Evil matters. Slam the fridge door. They are the only things that matter and they are of course precisely the things that science goes out of its way to ignore.
Without either the first or second amendment, we would have no liberty; the first allows us to find out what's happening, the second allows us to do something about it! The second will be taken away first, followed by the first and then the rest of our freedoms.
My friend Heinrich Zimmer of years ago used to say, 'The best things can't be told,' because they transcend thought. 'The second best are misunderstood,' because those are the thoughts that are supposed to refer to that which can't be thought about, and one gets stuck in the thoughts. 'The third best are what we talk about.'
The difference between the first and second-best things in art absolutely seems to escape verbal definition -- it is a matter of a hair, a shade, an inward quiver of some kind -- yet what miles away in the point of preciousness!
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