If two lives join, there is oft a scar. They are one and one, with a shadowy third; One near one is too far.
Art remains the one way possible of speaking truth.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Art is a unique medium for expressing and conveying deeper truths.
This quote by Robert Browning suggests that art serves as a powerful vehicle for truth-telling, allowing individuals to express complex ideas and emotions that might be difficult to communicate through conventional language. Through various forms of artistic expression, such as painting, music, or poetry, artists can convey profound truths about the human experience, society, and the world we live in, making art an essential tool for understanding and connecting with these deeper realities.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on the role of art in society, one might use this quote to emphasize art's importance in conveying truth.
More from Robert Browning
All quotes βTis Man's to explore up and down, inch by inch, with the taper his reason.
I think, am sure, a brother's love exceeds_x000D_ _x000D_ All the world's loves in its unworldliness.
I dare not so honor my mere wishes and prayers as to put them for a moment beside your noble acts; but this know, I would rather submit to the worst of deaths, so far as pain goes, than have a single dog or cat tortured on the pretence of sparing me a twinge or two.
How well I know what I mean to do When the long dark Autumn evenings come, And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue? With the music of all thy voices, dumb In lifeβs November too! I shall be found by the fire, suppose, Oβer a great wise book as beseemeth age, While the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows, And I turn the page, and I turn the page, Not verse now, only prose!
How good is life, the mere living!
Similar quotes
The possibility of being as free with the camera as we are with the pen is a fantastic prospect for the creative life of the 21st century.
To provide background and physical description and all the rest is of course vital to fiction, but vital only insofar as such detail is in the service of a richly imagined story, rather than in the service of good botany or good philosophy or good geography.
I will now claim - until dispossesed - that I was the first person in the world to apply the typewriter to literature. ... The early machine was full of caprices, full of defects- devilish ones. It had as many immoralities as the machine of today has virtues. After a year or two I found that it was degrading my character, so I thought I would give it to Howells. ... He took it home to Boston, and my morals began to improve, but his have never recovered.
From dancing around to Michael Jackson and Madonna as a kid to having my mind blown by the first sounds of punk and indie rock, to getting to play my own songs and have people listen, music is what got me through.
There is a deep question whether the possible meanings that emerge from an effort to explain the experience of art may not mask the real meanings of a work of art.
If you don't go to Broadway, you're a fool. On Broadway, off Broadway, above Broadway, below Broadway, go! Don't tell me there isn't something wonderful playing. If I'm home in New York at night, I'm either at a Broadway or an Off Broadway show. We're in the theater capital of the world, and if you don't get it, you're an idiot.