Associate with the noblest people you can find; read the best books; live with the mighty; but learn to be happy alone.
Saul BellowRead
Art -- the fresh feeling, new harmony, the transforming magic which by means of myth brings back the scattered distracted soul from its modern chaos -- art, not politics, is the remedy.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Art serves as a healing force that can restore balance and harmony to the disordered soul amidst modern chaos.
In this quote, Saul Bellow emphasizes the transformative power of art in the face of contemporary life's distractions and confusion. He suggests that rather than seeking solutions in politics, individuals should turn to art as a means to reclaim their sense of self and harmony, highlighting art's critical role in navigating the complexities of modern existence.
Themes
ArtChaosHarmonySoulRemedyMyth
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of creativity in education, one might refer to Bellow's idea that art can heal the soul.
More from Saul Bellow
All quotes →When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.
Saul BellowRead
In here, the human bosom -- mine, yours, everybody's -- there isn't just one soul. There's a lot of souls. But there are two main ones, the real soul and a pretender soul. Now! Every man realizes that he has to love something or somebody. He feels that he must go outward. 'If thou canst not love, what art thou?' Are you with me?
Saul BellowRead
I've discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, 'To hell with you.'
Saul BellowRead
I see that I've become a really bad correspondent. It's not that I don't think of you. You come into my thoughts often. But when you do it appears to me that I owe you a particularly grand letter. And so you end in the "warehouse of good intentions": "Can't do it now." "Then put it on hold." This is one's strategy for coping with old age, and with death--because one can't die with so many obligations in storage. Our clever species, so fertile and resourceful in denying its weaknesses.
Saul BellowRead
A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.
Saul BellowRead
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The curious thing about the Ready-Made is that I've never been able to arrive at a definition or explanation that fully satisfies me. There's still magic in the idea, so I'd rather keep it that way than try to be exoteric about it.
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People call me the painter of dancing girls. It has never occurred to them that my chief interest in dancers lies in rendering movement and painting pretty clothes.
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It's not that he lacked poetry. But his poetry was of the body, not the mind. He spoke it in the way he moved, the way he held a hammer, rowed a boat, built a fire. I, on the other hand, was like a brain in a box, a beating heart in a coal scuttle.
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