The earth has grown old with its burden of care, But at Christmas it always is young.
Phillips BrooksRead
Life comes before literature, as the material always comes before the work. The hills are full of marble before the world blooms with statues.
Interpretation
Life and experience are essential foundations that precede artistic expression and creativity.
In this quote, Phillips Brooks emphasizes the idea that genuine life experiences and the natural world provide the raw materials for artistic creation. Just as marble exists in the hills prior to becoming a crafted statue, the richness of life serves as the basis for literature and art, suggesting that creativity emerges from observation and understanding of the world around us.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of storytelling, I might say, 'As Phillips Brooks reminds us, 'Life comes before literature.'
The earth has grown old with its burden of care, But at Christmas it always is young.
We never become truly spiritual by sitting down and wishing to become so. You must undertake something so great that you cannot accomplish it unaided.
The truest help we can render an afflicted man is not to take his burden from him, but to call out his best energy, that he may be able to bear the burden.
To believe in the God over us and around us and not in the God within us - that would be a powerless and fruitless faith.
To say, 'well done' to any bit of good work is to take hold of the powers which have made the effort and strengthen them beyond our knowledge.
Think of life as a voyage. The truest liver of the truest life is like a voyager who, as he sails, is not indifferent to all the beauty of the sea around him.
Whenever I make music, it reflects where I'm at mentally.
What’s so incredibly amusing with photography is that while seemingly an art of the surface, it catches things I haven’t even noticed. And it pains me not to have seen things in all their depth.
I only know how to approach a place by walking. For what does a street photographer do but walk and watch and wait and talk, and then watch and wait some more, trying to remain confident that the unexpected, the unknown, or the secret heat of the known awaits just around the corner.
Have a strong vision about the story you want to tell and how you want to tell it.
My dad would go to work every day and write in a room full of funny people. He enjoyed it. I know great writers who find the process agonising but to me, writing has always been sheer joy.
Painting is another form of thinking.
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