David Hume Quotes

I am not an artist. I am a craftsman.

When I arrive in Los Angeles in the entertainment community, and I use implements like a shovel and a hammer, our society has distanced itself so far from working with its hands that those incredibly pedestrian skills are perceived as somehow being extraordinary.

To the engineer, all matter in the universe can be placed into one of two categories: (1) things that need to be fixed, and (2) things that will need to be fixed after you've had a few minutes to play with them. Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.

It's a real testament to the amount of skill and talent involved, across the board, whether it's the production design, the construction, the costume design, the other actors, the way it's shot, the directors we had on it, or obviously John's writing. When things do go well, it sometimes seems easy, in a weird way, but it's actually down to a lot of cogs working in a big machine. But, I'm certainly happy to be going back. I'm excited to carry on.

Consider how wool is turned into an elegantly designed carpet by coming into contact with an intelligent person.

I'm more careful about my hands than about what I eat and most anything else, because my hands have been my living. My hands have been able to help me learn. My hands have taken me around the world. So I'm very proud of my hands.

I like my products to be smart in a technical way but to show the time invested in their creation, too.

Craftsmanship and logic is key to any movie-making.

There's nothing more special than intellect and labour that makes painting work. There's no magic there; it's information, and it's work.

A sad truth I learned as a DP starting out was that it doesn't matter how beautiful I make it if the story and performance are not there. That should be number one.

My father, Beric, ran a joinery business and owned two factories.

A really well-made buttonhole is the only link between Art and Nature.

I must say what I admire most is the person who masters an area of practical experience, and can teach me something. I mean, my local midwife has taught me how to keep bees. Well, she can't understand anything I write. And I find myself liking her, may I say, more than most poets. And among my friends I find people who know all about boats or know all about certain sports, or how to cut somebody open and remove an organ. I'm fascinated by this mastery of the practical.

I certainly see myself more as a craftsman than as an artist.

Necessity is always the first stimulus to industry, and those who conduct it with prudence, perseverance and energy will rarely fail. Viewed in this light, the necessity of labor is not a chastisement, but a blessing,--the very root and spring of all that we call progress in individuals and civilization in nations.

We make our own whiskey and our own smoke, too. Ain't too many things these ole boys can't do.

Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you above craft. Without skill, all the passion in the world will leave you eager but floundering. Combining the two is the essence of the creative life.

Talent you have naturally. Skill is only developed by hours and hours and hours of beating on your craft.

Wherever a ship ploughs the sea, or a plough furrows the field; wherever a mine yields its treasure; wherever a ship or a railroad train carries freight to market; wherever the smoke of the furnace rises, or the clang of the loom resounds; even in the lonely garret where the seamstress plies her busy needle--there is industry.

Whatever you could do with your hands was important because it kept you in a motion of being able to produce something, and producing something kept you balanced in a way.

Everything I do is a direct creation of my hands, whether it is made in wood, plaster or clay.

The house praises the carpenter.

The pride of the artisan in his art and its uses is pride in himself...It is in his skill and ability to make things as he wishes them to be that he rejoices.

In a society of little economic development, universal inactivity accompanies universal poverty. You survive not by struggling against nature, or by increasing production, or by relentless labor; instead you survive by expending as little energy as possible, by striving constantly to achieve a state of immobility.

The wind, a sightless laborer, whistles at his task.