|
If photography were difficult in the true sense - that the creation of a simple photograph would entail as much time and effort as the production of a good watercolor or etching - there would be a vast improvement in total output. The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster. (Ansel Adams)
Difficulties are opportunities to better things, they are stepping stones to greater experience. Perhaps some day you will be thankful for some temporary failure in a particular direction. When one door closes, another always opens,
as a natural law it has to be, to balance. (Brian Adams)
God doesn't believe in the easy way. (James Agee)
I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. (Maya Angelou)
The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances. (Aristotle)
Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it so it goes on flying anyway. (Mary Kay Ash)
Do not think that what is hard for thee to master is impossible for man; but if a thing is possible and proper to man, deem it attainable by thee. (Marcus Aurelius)
The most difficult object in painting is yourself because you're always at issue... (Romare Bearden)
I want the shuffles and echoes, and a certain mysteriousness... It's so bloody hard to paint. (Leland Bell)
Each handicap is like a hurdle in a steeplechase, and when you ride up to it, if you throw your heart over, the horse will go along, too. (Lawrence Bixby)
Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution. It forces us to change our thinking in order to find it. (Niels Bohr)
If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant. If we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. (Anne Bradstreet)
Things are not difficult to make; what is difficult is putting ourselves in the state of mind to make them. (Constantin Brancusi)
The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want. (Dr. Leo Buscaglia)
See every difficulty as a challenge, a stepping stone, and never be defeated by anything or anyone. (Eileen Caddy)
One day a student asked Taiga, "What is the most difficult part of painting?" Taiga answered: "The part of the paper where nothing is painted is the most difficult." (Zen calendar)
Adversity is the diamond dust Heaven polishes its jewels with. (Thomas Carlyle)
When Michelangelo finished the painting of the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, he spent the rest of his life trying to remove the paint that had poured into his sleeve. (Francois Cavanna)
I have made some progress. Why so late and with such difficulty? Is art really a priesthood that demands the pure in heart who must belong to it entirely? (Paul Cezanne)
The contour eludes me. (Paul Cezanne)
How many attempts, now happy, now unhappy!... He who has not felt the difficulties of his art does nothing that counts. (Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin)
Every difficulty slurred over will be a ghost to disturb your repose later on. (Frederic Chopin)
on trying to paint a pale-blue sky: "My hand seemed arrested by a silent veto." (Winston Churchill)
An inconvenience is an unrecognized opportunity. (Confucius)
It's been a rough day. I got up this morning, put on a shirt and a button fell off. I picked up my briefcase and the handle came off. I'm afraid to go to the bathroom. (Rodney Dangerfield)
The distance isn't important; it is only the first step that is difficult. (Marquise du Deffand)
Finishing a painting demands a heart of steel: everything requires a decision, and I find difficulties where I least expect them... It is at such moments that one fully realizes one's own weaknesses. (Eugene Delacroix)
One should not be too difficult. An artist should not treat himself like an enemy. (Eugene Delacroix)
All the adversity I've had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me... You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you. (Walt Disney)
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. (Albert Einstein)
There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
A painting that makes me stretch beyond the comfortable and easy is one that makes me want to paint more. Too many of the easy ones and I'd be looking for something else to do. (Gary English)
The greater difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests. (Epicurus)
Difficulties should act as a tonic. They should spur us to greater exertion. (B. C. Forbes)
Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs. (Henry Ford)
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. (Henry Ford)
I remember Francis Bacon would say that he felt he was giving art what he thought it previously lacked. With me, it's what Yeats called the fascination with what's difficult. I'm only trying to do what I can't do. (Lucian Freud)
They called it a job that couldn't be done / With a smile we went right to it, / We tackled that job that couldn't be done / And by gosh, we couldn't do it. (H. D. Genn)
It's a lot harder to paint nothing than to paint something. (Graham Gillmore)
To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
Difficulties increase the nearer we approach our goal. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
In an artist's life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing. (Vincent van Gogh)
Paintings that you work hardest at are the ones you learn the most from, and are often your favorites. (Irwin Greenberg)
It's difficult to paint every day, and people who say they do, probably don't; it's a very demanding thing. (Roger de Grey)
Perhaps the most difficult thing an artist has to do is evaluate the quality of his own work. (Peggy Hadden)
Storms make the oak grow deeper roots. (George Herbert)
Within every setback or obstacle or disadvantage there is the seed of an equal or opposite or greater advantage or benefit. (Napoleon Hill)
Life is short, the art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgment difficult. The physician must be ready, not only to do his duty himself, but also to secure cooperation of the patient, of the attendants, and of externals. (Hippocrates)
I got the light and the sea that I wanted, but as it was very cold had to paint out of my window and I was a little too far away... (Winslow Homer)
When things are steep, remember to stay level-headed. (Horace)
Man needs difficulties. They are necessary for health. (Carl Jung)
The hardest thing about art is letting it be easy. (Fern Kagan)
When all combine in every way to make everything easier, people will want difficulty. I conceived it as my task to make difficulties everywhere. (Soren Kierkegaard)
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
I try to deal with the complexities of power and social life, but as far as the visual presentation goes I purposely avoid a high degree of difficulty. (Barbara Kruger)
Once you realize that it is impossible to capture the character of the various manifestations of nature by pictorial means, and that an interpretation based on imagination is equally erroneous, you will not find yourself facing a gaping void as you might have feared. (Frantisek Kupka)
It is under the greatest adversity that there exists the greatest potential for doing good... (Dalai Lama)
The number of obstacles that you face in life will lay the foundation for massive growth. (John Di Lemme)
To fly we have to have resistance. (Maya Lin)
A ballerina's life can be glorious. But it does not get any easier. I don't think anyone must ever think about it getting easier. (Alica Markova)
Hatred, rancor, and the spirit of vengeance are useless baggage to the artist. His road is difficult enough for him to cleanse his soul of everything which could make it more so. (Henri Matisse)
There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so, he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted. (Henri Matisse)
Incessant falls teach men to reform, and distress rouses their strength. Life springs from calamity, and death from ease. (Mencius)
My beard towards heaven, I feel my nape support / The back of my head, I grow the breast of a harpy / And my brush as it drips continually / Upon my face, makes it a gorgeous floor. (Michelangelo)
In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest. (Henry Miller)
It's enough to drive you crazy, trying to depict the weather, the atmosphere, the ambience. (Claude Monet)
It seems to me that when I see nature I see it ready-made, completely written – but then, try to do it! (Claude Monet)
I have once more taken up things that can't be done: water with grasses weaving on the bottom. But I'm always tackling that sort of thing! (Claude Monet)
It really is appallingly difficult to do something which is complete in every respect, and I think most people are content with mere approximations. Well, my dear friend, I intend to battle on, scrape off and start again... (Claude Monet)
-letter to Bazille...
It's harder than you think, and I'll bet that you would not split much wood. No, you see, advice is very difficult to give, and I don't think it would serve any purpose, if I may say so without offense. (Claude Monet)
It is surmounting difficulties that makes heroes. (Louis Pasteur)
The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. (Randy Pausch)
Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them. You will find that they haven't half the strength you think they have. (Norman Vincent Peale)
Difficulties will assail you only when you lack in concentration and persistence. (Walter J. Phillips)
Unless your work gives you trouble, it is no good. (Pablo Picasso)
We all hit bumps. But we're not defined by the bumps, we're defined by how we respond to those bumps. (Vince Poscente)
People in distress will sometimes prefer a problem that is familiar to a solution that is not. (Neil Postman)
A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner. (English proverb)
There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly. (Pythagoras)
Only the four corners of the background remained. It was terribly difficult to fix my eyes on all of them at the same time. My experience was that the most difficult thing of all in art is painting in all four corners at the same time. (Arnulf Rainer)
What is difficult and will take a life time to perfect is a painting or sculpture that rings like a bell or sings like a song. To make art that is more like music, we need to start thinking of ways to capture more of the essence of what we see. (William F. Reese)
The channel of art can only become clogged and misdirected by the artist's concern with merely temporary and local disturbances. The song is higher than the struggle. (Adrienne Rich)
In the difficult are the friendly forces, the hands that work on us. (Rainer Maria Rilke)
It is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult. That something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it. It is also good to love: because love is difficult. (Rainer Maria Rilke)
Those tasks that have been entrusted to us are difficult; almost everything serious is difficult; and everything is serious. (Rainer Maria Rilke)
Surmounting difficulty is the crucible that forms character. (Anthony Robbins)
The difficulties you meet will resolve themselves as you advance. Proceed, and light will dawn, and shine with increasing clearness on your path. (Jim Rohn)
Those wonderful things out of doors... rain, falling snow, wind – all these things to contend with only make the open-air painter love the fight. (Elmer Schofield)
Sometimes I lie awake at night and ask, 'Why me?' Then a voice answers, 'Nothing personal, your name just happened to come up.' (Charles Schulz)
Sometimes I lie awake at night, and ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?' Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night.' (Charles Schulz)
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult. (Seneca)
Great art is never produced for its own sake. It is too difficult to be worth the effort. (George Bernard Shaw)
The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men have had to serve. (Samuel Smiles)
If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart. (Socrates)
Painting: That's easy, where to sign it and what to call it, that's difficult. (Ruskin Spear)
Only let a man say that he will do something and a whole mechanism goes to work to stop him. (John Steinbeck)
An easy task becomes difficult when you do it with reluctance. (Terence)
You can only come to the morning through the shadows. (J. R. R. Tolkien)
After every difficulty, ask yourself two questions: "What did I do right?" and "What would I do differently?" (Brian Tracy)
Difficulties come not to obstruct, but to instruct. (Brian Tracy)
Between you and every goal that you wish to achieve, there is a series of obstacles, and the bigger the goal, the bigger the obstacles. (Brian Tracy)
Prepare for the difficult while it is still easy. Deal with the big while it is still small. Difficult undertakings have always started with what's easy. (Lao Tzu)
Adversity introduces a man to himself. (Author unknown)
The virtue of obedience makes the will supple... It inspires the courage with which to fulfill the most difficult tasks. (John Vianney)
There's a thrill in the midst of the hardship in knowing that I'm making the invisible real. And I'm doing what I want. (Errollyn Wallen)
Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records. (William A. Ward)
Paintings are too hard. The things I want to show are mechanical. Machines have less problems. I'd like to be a machine, wouldn't you? (Andy Warhol)
Writing is so difficult that I often feel that writers, having had their hell on earth, will escape all punishment hereafter. (Jessamyn West)
What makes you think painting is any less difficult than brain surgery? (Christopher Willard)
| 