An abstract painting need in 50 years by no means look "abstract" any longer.
Marcel DuchampRead
What am I? Do I know? I am a man: quite simply, a 'breather.'
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the essence of human existence and self-awareness.
In this quote, Marcel Duchamp poses fundamental questions about identity and existence. By simplistically defining himself as a 'breather,' he reduces the complexities of being a human to the act of living and breathing, prompting a reflection on what it truly means to exist and the nature of self-awareness.
Themes
IdentityExistenceSelf-AwarenessPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophy class discussing existentialism, this quote can spark a conversation about the nature of human existence.
More from Marcel Duchamp
All quotes βAll this twaddle, the existence of God, atheism, determinism, liberation, societies, death, etc., are pieces of a chess game called language, and they are amusing only if one does not preoccupy oneself with 'winning or losing this game of chess.
Marcel DuchampRead
I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art - and much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its social position.
Marcel DuchampRead
I never finished the 'Large Glass' because, after working on it for eight years, I probably got interested in something else; also, I was tired. It may be that, subconsciously, I never intended to finish it because the word 'finish' implies an acceptance of traditional methods and all the paraphernalia that accompany them.
Marcel DuchampRead
It's a product of two poles - there's the pole of the one who makes the work, and the pole of the one who looks at it. I give the latter as much importance as the one who makes it.
Marcel DuchampRead
I became a librarian at the Sainte-Genevieve Library in Paris. I made this gesture to rid myself of a certain milieu, a certain attitude, to have a clean conscience, but also to make a living. I was twenty-five. I had been told that one must make a living, and I believed it.
Marcel DuchampRead
Similar quotes
Let go, and move closer to existence in silence and peace, in meditation.
RajneeshRead
Whatever is happening, whatever is changing, whatever is going or not going according to my plans - I release my hold on all of it. I leave behind who I think I am, who I want to be, what I want the world to be. I come home to the great peace of the present moment.
Elizabeth LesserRead
I think this is how we are supposed to be in the world-present and in awe.
Anne LamottRead
I've always believed that we were, each of us, put here for a reason, that there is a plan, somehow a divine plan for all of us. I know now that whatever days are left to me belong to him.
Ronald ReaganRead
The apartment was built at the edge of a high cliff so that when you looked out the back window it seemed as if you were twelve floors up instead of four. It was very much like living on the edge of the world - a last resting place before the final big drop.
Charles BukowskiRead
Will you not covet such power as this, and seek such throne as this, and be no more housewives, but queens? There is no putting by that crown; queens you must always be; queens to your lovers; queens to your husbands and sons; queens of higher mystery to the world beyond. . . . But alas! you are too often idle and careless queens, grasping at majesty in the least things, while you abdicate it in the greatest.
John RuskinRead