John Sexton Quotes

One of the workshop participants had shown me a single 8 X 10 photograph of a power plant where he actually was the general manager of this power cooperative. It was quite magical to me.

Beauty awakens the soul to act.

a perfect piece of architecture kindles that aimless reverie, which bears the soul we know not whither.

There’s a real question as to what beauty is and why it’s important to us. Many pseudo-philosophers try to answer these questions and tell us they’re not really answerable. I draw on art and literature, and music in particular, because music is a wonderful example of something that’s in this world but not of this world. Great works of music speak to us from another realm even though they speak to us in ordinary physical sounds.

In my actual imaginative contact with life, I am vastly more responsive to beauty than to horror - indeed, I never experience real cosmic horror except in infrequent nightmares. However, when I come to record my various imaginative experiences, I generally find that only the horror items have any uniqueness or originality. Others have seen the same beautiful things that I have seen, & have sung them more nobly.

I think that usually I'm just drawn to something that's different from something that I've done previously. Whatever makes me feel something. Whatever makes me excited and connected to it.

I once taught art to adults in a night course. I had a woman who painted her back yard, and she said it was the first time she had ever really looked at it. I think everyone sees beauty. Art is a way to respond

Art still has truth. Take refuge there.

I can make the stars dance

A work of art... is not a living thing... that walks or runs. But the making of a life. That which gives you a reaction. To some it is the wonder of man's fingers. To some it is the wonder of the mind. To some it is the wonder of technique. And to some it is how real it is. To some, how transcendent it is. Like the 5th Symphony, it presents itself with a feeling that you know it, if you have heard it once.

A work of art is one of mystery, the one extreme magic; everything else is either arithmetic or biology.

In your beauty, how to make poems.

That's the real power of art, I think. Not to chide but to provoke challenge. Otherwise why bother?

Only through Beauty's morning-gate, dost thou penetrate the land of knowledge.

Art trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life.

Wittgenstein once wrote that when the eye sees something beautiful, the hand wants to draw it. I wish I could draw you.

Cultures cherish artists because they are people who can say, Look at that.

Art offers sanctuary to everyone willing to open their Hearts as well as their Eyes.

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 sight of anything extremely beautiful, in nature or in art, brings back the memory of what one loves, with the speed of lightning.

You need the art in order to love the life.

How much more sensuality invites to art than does sentimentality.

Every day look at a beautiful picture, read a beautiful poem, listen to some beautiful music, and if possible, say some reasonable thing.

What I say is that we're capable of a transcendent response, and I think it makes us happy. And I do think beauty produces a transcendent response.