87 Quotes by Anthony Marais

Human nature is, and will always be, indelibly stamped by weakness. Indeed, we are so bound to our own defeat that it has become the means of our development.

We are all born wise. Unfortunately, we all don’t die that way.

Wisdom doesn’t come only from the experience you have had, but from the experience you have chosen not to have.

Most parents are so convinced of their little darling’s innocence that, by proxy, in rallying for junior’s purity they come to believe in their own innocence—as if duplicating oneself will make a right!

Humanity is as horrified and repulsed by real nature as it is by real death. Thus, we strike back against this formidable opponent with our sharpest weapon: our imagination. From this noble tool—born of necessity and elevated to beauty—culture was born, and the war against nature begun.

It’s not words, but years we should be editing. Remember: time spent on bad art is a form of redundancy, doing the same thing twice is a form of tautology, and wasting precious moments complaining about life is a form of pleonasm. We should all learn to live our lives concisely.

Contemplation and writing demand solitude, which leads to a sorry feeling of isolation and detachment. Writers try to call their loneliness genius, and the world believes them most of the time.

When a scientist splits an atom, the event is locked away like a jewel in a castle, funneling down to the public through a myriad of institutions. But when an artist stumbles upon the key to unleashing universal evil, the forbidden fruit of his painstaking labor is packaged and sold at every corner store from Bangor to Bangkok. I’m still unsure whether this is the result of a lack of respect for artists (compared to scientists) or the moral corruption of artists (compared to scientists).

The hermit is he who needs a friend, and in the absence of a community has befriended himself.