Art Terrorism Quotes & Sayings

I thought about Stockhausen. What had prompted him to call the attacks a work of art? For him, I thought, it was not a matter of finding death beautiful, but rather seeing that someone had taken liberties in reality that an artist could only dream of. That was both the virtue and the vice of art. In art, you can kill with impunity - destroy the world, perpetrate a holocaust, whip up the apocalypse. But it's only art. You can blow up five million people in an opera and not have anywhere near the impact of blowing up five thousand in reality. Stockhausen seemed to realize this, since the terrorism caused him to feel that being a composer was nothing. In that sense, his words were a moral statement about the limits of art, not an immoral statement about aestheticizing destruction. — Supervert

We aren't poor," my mother said, again and again. "Because we're rich in love. — Cheryl Strayed

People today are dying for something to live for. — J.S.B. Morse

I looked at the headline: "The Devil Made Him Do It." It was an opinion piece about the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen and the "disjointed" but "grotesque" remarks he had made at a press conference. Lamenting the relative impotence of the arts in comparison to terrorism, Stockhausen had called the attacks "the greatest work of art that is possible in the whole cosmos." I guess he thought of it as a Wagnerian spectacle, an opera of airplanes and towers. "Five thousand people are dispatched into eternity, in a single moment," he said. "I couldn't do that. In comparison with that, we're nothing as composers. — Supervert

There's no such thing as a war against terrorism. It's idiotic. These are slogans. These are lies. It's advertising, which is the only art form we ever invented and developed. — Gore Vidal

A New World Order is required to deal with the Climate Change crisis. — Mikhail Gorbachev

Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. 'Respect for religion' has become a code phrase meaning 'fear of religion.' Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect."

[I Stand With Charlie Hebdo, as We All Must (Wall Street Journal, January 7, 2015)] — Salman Rushdie

Art is an evolutionary act. The shape of art and its role in society is constantly changing. At no point is art static. There are no rules. — Raymond Salvatore Harmon

Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool
Art thou, to break into this woman's mood,
Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own! — William Shakespeare

Whatever your financial status in life, or whatever work you do, know that you can make a significant contribution to your family and world by doing small things with great love. — Joyce Vissell