It is still not enough for language to have clarity and content... it must also have a goal and an imperative. Otherwise from language we descend to chatter, from chatter to babble and from babble to confusion.
Rene DaumalRead
Art has a double face, of expression and illusion, just like science has a double face: the reality of error and the phantom of truth.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Art and science both reveal dual aspects of reality, balancing expression with illusion and truth with error.
Rene Daumal's quote reflects the complex nature of both art and science. Art serves as a medium for expression, conveying emotions and ideas, yet it often blends with illusion, altering perceptions of reality. Similarly, science strives for truth but is constantly faced with errors and imperfections in understanding. Thus, both realms engage with the tension between what is real and what is illusionary.
Themes
ArtScienceExpressionIllusionTruthError
In practice
Example use cases
In an art class, this quote can be used to inspire students to explore the deeper meanings behind their creations.
More from Rene Daumal
All quotes βTruth is one, but error proliferates. Man tracks it down and cuts it up into little pieces hoping to turn it into grains of truth. But the ultimate atom will always essentially be an error, a miscalculation.
Rene DaumalRead
In the mythic tradition, the Mountain is the bond between Earth and Sky. Its solitary summit reaches the sphere of eternity, and its base spreads out in manifold foothills into the world of mortals. It is the way by which man can raise himself to the divine and by which the divine can reveal itself to man.
Rene DaumalRead
The door to the invisible must be visible.
Rene DaumalRead
I am dead because I have no desire,_x000D_ I have no desire because I think I possess,_x000D_ I think I possess because I do not try to give;_x000D_ Trying to give, we see that we have nothing;_x000D_ Seeing that we have nothing, we try to give ourselves,_x000D_ Trying to give ourselves, we see that we are nothing,_x000D_ Seeing that we are nothing, we desire to become,_x000D_ Desiring to become, we live.
Rene DaumalRead
Common experience is the gold reserve which confers an exchange value on the currency which words are; without this reserve of shared experiences, all our pronouncements are checks drawn on insufficient funds.
Rene DaumalRead
Similar quotes
The strange power of art is sometimes it can show that what people have in common is more urgent than what differentiates them. It seems to me it's something that theatre can do, but it's rare; it's very rare.
John BergerRead
Writing is exhilarating, but reading reviews is not. I've been really devastated by 'good' reviews because they misunderstand the project of the book. It can be strangely galvanising to get a 'bad' one.
Eleanor CattonRead
Language in fiction is made up of equal parts meaning and music. The sentences should have rhythm and cadence, they should engage and delight the inner ear.
Michael CunninghamRead
Making words rhyme for a living is one of the great joys of my life... That's a superpower I've been very conscious of developing. I started at the same level as everybody else, and then I just listened to more music and talked to myself until it was an actual superpower I could pull out on special occasions.
Lin-Manuel MirandaRead
In other words, I wouldn't like to be an actor if I could only be real. I like to get wild, behaviorally wild, and it's crazy to think of any form where it's just one way.
Jack NicholsonRead
Today the artist has inherited the combined functions of hermit, pilgrim, prophet, priest, shaman, sorcerer, soothsayer, alchemist.
Thomas MertonRead