Life, too, is like that. You live it forward, but understand it backward. It is only when you stop and look to the rear that you see the corpse caught under your wheel.
If you want to understand the causes that existed in the past, look at the results as they are manifested in the present. And if you want to understand what results will be manifested in the future, look at the causes that exist in the present.
I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. How far off, how cool, how chaste the persons look,begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary!
Look not at what is contrary to propriety; listen not to what is contrary to propriety; speak not what is contrary to propriety; make no movement which is contrary to propriety.
I have in my own life merely carried to the extreme that which you have never ventured to carry even halfway ; and what's more, you've regarded your cowardice as prudence, and found comfort in deceiving yourselves. So that, in fact, I may be even more "alive" than you are. Do take a closer look!
The very act of drawing an object, however badly, swiftly takes the drawer from a woolly sense of what the object looks like to a precise awareness of its component parts and particularities.
When I am asked about influences, I always say I bow down to Fred Astaire, because when you look at him dancing you never look at his extremities, do you? You look at his centre. What you never see is the hours of work that went into the routines, you just see the breathtaking spirit and freedom.