Jean Arp Quotes

Like art, religion is an imaginative and creative effort to find a meaning and value in human life.

Reclaiming the sacred in our lives naturally brings us close once more to the wellsprings of poetry.

I think of mythology as the homeland of the muses, the inspirers of art, the inspirers of poetry. To see life as a poem and yourself participating in a poem is what the myth does for you.

As I listen to the silence, I learn that my feelings about art and my feelings about the Creator of the Universe are inseparable. To try to talk about art and about Christianity is for me one and the same thing, and it means attempting to share the meaning of my life, what gives it, for me, its tragedy and its glory.

Mythologies, in other words, mythologies and religions are great poems and, when recognized as such, point infallibly through things and events to the ubiquity of a

Art has always been and is in its very essence the boldest departure from nature. It is the bridge into the spirit world.

Mysticism is, in essence, little more than a certain intensity and depth of feeling in regard to what is believed about the universe.

Poetry contains philosophy as the soul contains reason.

After one has abandoned a belief in God, poetry is that essence which takes its place as life's redemption.

An undevout poet is an impossibility.

For me, the poetry in a work is that which makes visible the invisible.

Poetry and art nourish the soul of the world with the flavor-filled substances of beauty, wisdom and truth.

Poetry contains almost all you need to know about life.

Suicide is, after all, the opposite of the poem.

The essence of poetry is will and passion.

The essence of any religion lies solely in the answer to the question: why do I exist, and what is my relationship to the infinite universe that surrounds me?

Art is only a means to life, the life more abundant. It merely points the way.

Art is the way to the absolute and to the essence of human life.

Poetry and philosophy are, according to how you take them, different spheres, different forms, or factors of religion. Try to really combine both, and you will have nothing but religion.

We may be able to tell how many stars are in the Milky Way; we may be able to count the petals of every flower, and number the bones of every bird; but unless faith leads us to a deeper understanding, a more reverent comprehension of the significance of the universe, God can be no more pleased with our knowledge than the painter is pleased with the fly which touches his picture with its feelers, and sips the varnish from the surface, and dies without dreaming of the meaning, thought, feeling, embodied in the colors.

Warriors are poets and poems and all the loveliness here in the worlds.

The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful.

In fact, whatever exists in the universe, in essence, in appearance, in the imagination, the painter has first in his mind and then in his hands ... it lies in his power to create them . . .

Poetry is news brought to the mountains by a unicorn and an echo.

The poetic myths are dead; and the poetic image, which is the myth of the individual, reigns in their stead.