Ah, steeds, steeds, what steeds! Has the whirlwind a home in your manes? Is there a sensitive ear, alert as a flame, in your every fiber? Hearing the familiar song from above, all in one accord you strain your bronze chests and, hooves barely touching the ground, turn into straight lines cleaving the air, and all inspired by God it rushes on!
Interpretation
This quote celebrates the beauty and power of horses, likening their energy and grace to divine inspiration.
Nikolai Gogol's quote captures the awe-inspiring nature of horses, portraying them as magnificent beings that embody both strength and sensitivity. The imagery of their speed and grace, likened to a whirlwind and inspired by a higher power, reflects a deep appreciation for the bond between humans and horses, illustrating how these majestic creatures elevate the spirit and stir the imagination.
In practice
This quote can be shared in a presentation about the beauty of nature and its influence on creativity.
At the end of the table, the secretary was reading the decision in some case, but in such a mournful and monotonous voice, that the condemned man himself would have fallen asleep while listening to it. The judge, no doubt, would have been the first of all to do so, had he not entered into an engrossing conversation while it was going on.
You can't imagine how stupid the whole world has grown nowadays.
Two turtle doves will show thee Where my cold ashes lie And sadly murmuring tell thee How in tears I did die
Nothing could be more pleasant than to live in solitude, enjoy the spectacle of nature, and occasionally read some book.
I here ask pardon of all my compatriots for everything of which I have been guilty towards them. I know that, by my ill-considered and immature works, I have brought distress to many and that I have even provoked others to attack me openly and, in general, have produced displeasure in many.
If you have not first pondered the entire situation of the man whom you wish to help, and if you have not brought with you instructions for him to follow henceforth in leading his life, he will not receive great good from your help.
To sing means to sense and to affirm that the spirit is real and that its glory is present.
Color is a plastic means of creating intervals... color harmonics produced by special relationships, or tensions. We differentiate now between formal tensions and color tensions, just as we differentiate in music between counterpoint and harmony.
The best literature is always a take [in the musical sense]; there is an implicit risk in its execution, a margin of danger that is the pleasure of the flight, of the love, carrying with it a tangible loss but also a total engagement that, on another level, lends the theater its unparalleled imperfection faced with the perfection of film. I don’t want to write anything but takes.
All great composers of the past spent most of their time studying. Feeling alone won't do the job. A man also needs technique.
As artists we are here to make you uncomfortable with the complexity of your reality.
Each work of art excludes the world, concentrates attention on itself. For the time it is the only thing worth doing -to do just that; be it a sonnet, a statue, a landscape, an outline head of Caesar, or an oration. Presently we return to the sight of another that globes itself into a whole as did the first, for example, a beautiful garden; and nothing seems worth doing in life but laying out a garden.
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