Perseverance has kept me going over the years. Things rarely happen overnight. Filmmakers should be prepared for many years of hard work. The sheer toil can be healthy and exhilarating.
Werner HerzogRead
I have never been one of those who cares about happiness. Happiness is a strange notion. I am just not made for it. It has never been a goal of mine; I do not think in those terms.
Interpretation
The author expresses skepticism about happiness as a goal or a natural state.
In this quote, Werner Herzog reflects on his personal relationship with the concept of happiness, suggesting that he finds it to be an elusive or artificial notion. He implies that rather than pursuing happiness, he focuses on experiencing life as it comes, revealing a deeper philosophical perspective that questions societal values placed on happiness.
In practice
During a speech about the pursuit of personal fulfillment, one might reference Herzog's quote to emphasize that happiness shouldn't be the sole focus.
Perseverance has kept me going over the years. Things rarely happen overnight. Filmmakers should be prepared for many years of hard work. The sheer toil can be healthy and exhilarating.
Hold firm to your vision but don't be a tyrant on set.
For a moment the feeling crept over me that my work, my vision, is going to destroy me, and for a fleeting moment I let myself take a long, hard look at myself, something I would not otherwise do--out of instinct, on principle, out of self-preservation--look at myself with objective curiosity to see whether my vision has not destroyed me already. I found it comforting to note that I was still breathing.
Very often, footage that you have shot develops its own dynamic, it's own life, that is totally unexpected, and moves away from you're original intentions. And you have to acknowledge, yes, there is a child growing and developing and moving in a direction that isn't expected-accept it as it is and let it develop its own life.
Without dreams we would be cows in a field, and I don't want to live like that. I live my life or I end my life with this project.
Coincidences always happen if you keep your mind open, while storyboards remain the instruments of cowards who do not trust in their own imagination and who are slaves of a matrix If you get used to planning your shots based solely on aesthetics, you are never that far from kitsch.
God has put within our lives meanings and possibilities that quite outrun the limits of mortality.
There is a place called ‘heaven’ where the good here unfinished is completed; and where the stories unwritten, and the hopes unfulfilled, are continued. We may laugh together yet.
A law is something which must have a moral basis, so that there is an inner compelling force for every citizen to obey.
It isn't the oceans which cut us off from the world - it's the American way of looking at things.
The world is kept alive only by heretics: the heretic Christ, the heretic Copernicus, the heretic Tolstoy. Our symbol of faith is heresy...
The sight of snow made her think how beautiful and short life is and how, in spite of all their enmities, people have so very much in common; measured against eternity and the greatness of creation, the world in which they lived was narrow. That's why snow drew people together. It was as if snow cast a veil over hatreds, greed, and wrath and made everyone feel close to one another. -- Snow pg 119
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