Craig Raine Quotes

Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.

Grant that the true organ with which the beautiful is apprehended is the imagination, and it follows that all arts are likely to affect the feelings indirectly.

The word 'superficial' comes with such negative connotations, suggesting that whatever it is applied to has no value. But the emotional pull of beauty for its own sake cannot be underestimated.

Beauty is whatever gives joy.

What I want to give in the theatre is beauty, that's what I want to give.

Art evokes emotion. It doesn't have to be a thing of beauty.

A painting has to be beautiful. Even in its grotesqueness.

Fashion is instant. It makes you feel something the second you see it on a body... whether you love it or hate it, or it offends you, or it makes you laugh or cry.

Symbols can be so beautiful, sometimes.

I believe that one of the most powerful things of all is aesthetics.

To my mind, a picture should be something pleasant, cheerful, and pretty, yes pretty! There are too many unpleasant things in life as it is without creating still more of them.

These Songs are not meant to be understood, you understand. They are only meant to terrify & comfort.

You look so good it hurts sometimes.

There is to my mind no doubt that the concept of beautiful had its roots in sexual excitation and that its original meaning was sexually stimulating.

For me, a picture should be like sparks. It must dazzle like the beauty of a woman or a poem. It must have radiance; it must be like those stones which Pyrenean shepherds use to light their pipes.

Each time I read a book, I cataloged the parts that struck me dumb with envy and admiration for their beauty and power and truth.

The pictures which do not represent an intense interest cannot expect to create an intense interest.

It has been said that beauty is a promise of happiness. Conversely, the possibility of pleasure can be a beginning of beauty.

I liked trumpet because it's related to boxing, but also it has a capacity to create a different type of beauty. There are fight fans, people who want to see that, but what they're really there to see is pretty rough. They're there for blood, which is fine. It's part of it. I enjoyed having the same type of internal, mental, physical fight, but enduring that sort of trauma or pain to send a message of love. I can still have the fight, but what I'm fighting for is more a reality that I want to create.

Alas, the transports beauty can inspire!

Imaginative literature primarily pleases rather than teaches. It is much easier to be pleased than taught, but much harder to know why one is pleased. Beauty is harder to analyze than truth.

Every living person and thing responds to beauty. We all thirst for it. We receive strength and renewal by seeing stirring and satisfying sites.

My paintings seem to make the strongest impression on people who are, well, who are crazy.

Lord Bacon makes beauty to consist of grace and motion.

But there is more to a fine photograph than information. We are also seeking to present an image that arouses the curiosity of the viewer or that, best of all, provokes the viewer to think-to ask a question or simply to gaze in thoughtful wonder. We know that photographs inform people. We also know that photographs move people. The photograph that does both is the one we want to see and make. It is the kind of picture that makes you want to pick up your own camera again and go to work.