All art speaks in signs and symbols. No one can explain how it happens that the artist can waken to life in us the existence that he has seen and lives through. No artistic speech is the adequate expression of what it represents; its vital force comes from what is unspoken in it.
Interpretation
Art communicates deeper meanings through symbols and emotions that words cannot capture.
In this quote, Albert Schweitzer emphasizes the unique and powerful nature of art as a form of expression. He suggests that the essence of art lies not in its verbal articulation but in the deep, unspoken emotions and experiences it evokes in the observer. Art is viewed as a bridge between the artist's vision and the audience's innermost feelings, resonating with them in profound ways that surpass mere language.
In practice
In an art class when discussing the significance of abstract expressionism.
I do not want to frighten you by telling you about the temptations life will bring. Anyone who is healthy in spirit will overcome them. But there is something I want you to realize. It does not matter so much what you do. What matters is whether your soul is harmed by what you do. If your soul is harmed, something irreparable happens, the extent of which you won't realize until it will be too late.
Within every patient there resides a doctor, and we as physicians are at our best when we we put our patients in touch with the doctor inside themselves.
By ethical conduct toward all creatures, we enter into a spiritual relationship with the universe.
No one can give a definition of the soul. But we know what it feels like. The soul is the sense of something higher than ourselves, something that stirs in us thoughts, hopes, and aspirations which go out to the world of goodness, truth and beauty. The soul is a burning desire to breathe in this world of light and never to lose it--to remain children of light.
The mistake made by all previous systems of ethics has been the failure to recognize that life as such is the mysterious value with which they have to deal. All spiritual life meets us within natural life. Reverence for life, therefore, is applied to natural life and spiritual life alike. In the parable of Jesus, the shepherd saves not merely the soul of the lost sheep but the whole animal. The stronger the reverence for natural life, the stronger grows also that for spiritual life.
The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.
My partner sometimes liked to go into the studio and improvise voice things just for fun. When I returned from England I transcribed one of her melodies, and had some of the hospice participants sing it, because they said they liked to sing. Their singing is very raw, but I'm going to use it for the final work.
There are connoisseurs of blue just as there are connoisseurs of wine.
It's weird when you see pieces of choreography that were done for you 15 or 20 years ago and now they are being done by another dance company.
Who are you, a hundred years from today, reading my poetry with curiosity?
In song and dance, man forgets how to walk and speak and is on the way into flying into the air, dancing... his very gestures express enchantment.
What is really beautiful must always be true.
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