"The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said "This is mine," and found people naive enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody. ”
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 1754

Her er passasjersvøpet, skralt og tynt;
- har dog i smaken en snev av Peer Gynt.
Innenfor her har vi gullgraver-jeget;
saften er vekk - om det noen har eiet.
Her er oldtidsgranskeren, kort, men kraftig.
Og her er profeten, fersk og saftig.
Han stinker, som skrevet står, av løgne,
så en ærlig mann kan få vann i øyne.
Det neste tykkes mykt. Det har svarte streger;
- svart kan ligne både prest og neger.
Det var en ustyrtelig mengde lag!
Kommer ikke kjernen snart for en dag?
Nei - Gud om den gjør! Til det innerste indre
er altsammen lag - bare mindre og mindre.
- Henrik Ibsen: Peer Gynt

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
- Albert Einstein

Source: Einstein, Albert. Quoted in The Quotations Page. Available Online from URL http://quotationspage.com/quote/4691.html [Downloaded 2009-09-28]

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- Albert Einstein

Source: Einstein, Albert. Quoted in URL http://home.online.no/~kamillao/quotes/einstein.html [Downloaded 2009-09-28]

"Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value."
- Albert Einstein

Source: Einstein, Albert. Quoted in URL http://home.online.no/~kamillao/quotes/einstein.html [Downloaded 2009-09-28]

"It is the theory that decides what we can observe."
- Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Source: Einstein, Albert. Quoted in The Quotations Page. Available Online from URL http://quotationspage.com/quote/4691.html [Downloaded 2009-09-28]

"An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory."
- Friedrich Engels (1820 - 1895)

Source: Engels, Friedrich. Quoted in The Quotations Page. Available Online from URL http://quotationspage.com/quote/33399.html [Downloaded 2009-09-28]

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; In practice, there is."
- Chuck Reid

Source: Reid, Chuck. Quoted in The Quotations Page. Available Online from URL http://quotationspage.com/quote/879.html [Downloaded 2009-09-28]

"He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife."
- Douglas Adams

Source: Adams, Douglas. Quoted in The Quotations Page. Available Online from URL http://quotationspage.com/quotes/Douglas_Adams/ [Downloaded 2009-09-28]

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so."
- Douglas Adams

Source: Adams, Douglas. Last Chance to See. Online from URL http://quotationspage.com/quotes/Douglas_Adams/ [Downloaded 2009-09-28].

"There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
- Douglas Adams

Source: Adams, Douglas. Quoted in The Quotations Page. Available Online from URL http://quotationspage.com/quotes/Douglas_Adams/ [Downloaded 2009-09-28]

"Of course, our failures are a consequence of many factors, but possibly one of the most important is the fact that society operates on the theory that specialization is the key to success, not realizing that specialization precludes comprehensive thinking."
- Richard Buckminster Fuller

Source: Fuller, R. Buckminister. 1963. Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. Quoted in The Quotations Page. Available from URL http://quotationspage.com/quote/34114.html [Downloaded 2009-09-28].

"If human life were long enough to find the ultimate theory, everything would have been solved by previous generations. Nothing would be left to be discovered."
- Stephen Hawking (1942 - )

Source: Hawking, Stephen. 2005. Interview with The Guardian (UK) September 27, 2005. Quoted in The Quotations Page. Available from URL http://quotationspage.com/quote/37152.html [Downloaded 2009-09-28]

"All art is propaganda. It is universally and inescapably propaganda; sometimes unconsciously, but often deliberately, propaganda."
- Upton Sinclair (1878-1968)

Source: Sinclair, Upton. 1925. Mammonart - an Essay in Economic Interpretation. in Ch. 2 "Who Owns the Artists?". Pasadena: Self. Quoted in Wikiquote. "Upton Sinclair". Available from URL http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair [Downloaded 2009-09-27].

"What life means to me is to put the content of Shelley into the form of Zola. The proletarian writer is a writer with a purpose; he thinks no more of "art for art's sake" than a man on a sinking ship thinks of painting a beautiful picture in the cabin; he thinks of getting ashore — and then there will be time enough for art."
- Upton Sinclair (1878-1968)

Source: Upton Sinclair in Cosmopolitan, 1906, quoted in SWADOS, Harvey. 1962. Radical's America. Little, Brown and Company. Available online from URL http://www.archive.org/stream/radicalsamericaa010992mbp/radicalsamericaa010992mbp_djvu.txt. [Downloaded 2009-09-27]

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it"
- Upton Sinclair (1878-1968)

Source: Sinclair, Upton. 1935. I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked, ISBN 0-520-08198-6; repr. University of California Press, 1994, p. 109. Quoted in Wikiquote. "Upton Sinclair". Available from URL http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair [Downloaded 2009-09-27].

"Do not judge men by mere appearances; for the light laughter that bubbles on the lip often mantles over the depths of sadness"
- Edward Chapin

"The event that made conceivable the realization that it was possible to 'speak another language' and still make sense in art was marcel Duchamps' first unassigned readymade. With the unassisted readymade, art changed its focus trom the form of the language to what was being said. Which means that it changed the nature of art from a question of morphology to a question of function. This change - one from 'appearance' to 'conception' - was the beginning of 'modern art' and the beginning of 'conceptual art'. "
- Peter Osborne

Source: Osborne, Peter. 2002. Conceptual Art. p. 13. London: Phaidon Press.

All art (after Duchamps) is conceptual (in nature) because art only exists conceptually
- Joseph Kosuth

Source: Joseph Kosuth, in "Art after Philosophy", 1969, quoted in Osborne, Peter. 2002. Conceptual Art. London: Phaidon Press.

Like everything metaphysical the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein

If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein

"The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity."
- Ludwig Wittgenstein

"Biennals are the art world's GPS and, to remain faithful to my metaphor, the satellites in a GPS system are also quite far removed from the centre. Biennals, triennals, documenta; they all help us navigate through a difficult art scene. An art scene that - since the world becomes steadily smaller, with seemingly shorter distances between the centre and the periphery, and between continents and cultures - becomes more and more facetted and complex. The art world has a rhizomatic structure; a network, where different quality criteria exist: There is no single answer but many, and here lies both the interesting and the challenging. Biennals help us see the big picture; significan trends, the most important. They help us classify."
- Jørgen Blitzner

Source: Blitzner. 2009. "Survey" p. 36-38. In Localised, edited by Anne Szefer Karlsen, Morten Kvamme, Arne Skaug Olsen. Bergen: Ctr+Z Publishing.
Note: Translated from Norwegian by Gillian Carson

"Biennals are the art world's GPS"
- Jørgen Blitzner

Source: Blitzner. 2009. "Survey" p. 36-38. In Localised, edited by Anne Szefer Karlsen, Morten Kvamme, Arne Skaug Olsen. Bergen: Ctr+Z Publishing.
Note: Translated from Norwegian by Gillian Carson

"Just as markets are now rethinking the viability of disposable culture, it's high time for the art world to consider sustainable practices too."
- Renee Turner

Source: Turner, Renee. 2009. "The novelty is gone, and that's the perfect place to begin" p. 31-35. In Localised, edited by Anne Szefer Karlsen, Morten Kvamme, Arne Skaug Olsen. Bergen: Ctr+Z Publishing.
Note: This text can be downloaded in full fromt the author's website: http://www.fudgethefacts.com/?p=200

"Too often the art world emulates traditional market values and dynamics when it comes to exhibition making. One year it's this curator with that theme, and the next, it's another theme with another curator. Under the auspices of originality and novelty, trends dictate that the old must make way for the new. Just as markets are now rethinking the viability of disposable culture, it's high time for the art world to consider sustainable practices too. This does not mean there is no space for radical breaks, to the contrary divergent approaches should be encouraged. But even in rebellion, those developments should be informed by previous experiences."
- Renee Turner

Source: Turner, Renee. 2009. "The novelty is gone, and that's the perfect place to begin" p. 31-35. In Localised, edited by Anne Szefer Karlsen, Morten Kvamme, Arne Skaug Olsen. Bergen: Ctr+Z Publishing.
Note: This text can be downloaded in full fromt the author's website: http://www.fudgethefacts.com/?p=200

"To use a magnifying glass is to pay attention, but isn't paying attention already having a magnifying glass?"
- Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962)

Source: Bachelard, Gaston. 1994. The Poetics of Space. Page 158. Bacon press: Boston.

"I once read somewhere that a hermit who was watching his hour-glass without praying, heard noises that split his eardrums. He suddenly heard the catastrophe of time, in the hour-glass. The tick tock of our watches is so mechanically jerky that we no longer have ears subtle enough to hear the passage of time"
- Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962)

Source: Bachelard, Gaston. 1994. The Poetics of Space. Page 164. Bacon press: Boston.

"Painting is so poetic, while sculpture is more logical and scientific and makes you worry about gravity."
- Damien Hirst

"All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness."
- Eckhart Tolle

"Colour is the essence of painting, which the subject always killed."

- Kasimir Malevich (1878-1935)

"Only dull and impotent artists screen their work with sincerity. In art there is need for truth, not sincerity."

- Kasimir Malevich (1878-1935)

Source: Malevich, Kasimir. From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: The New Realism in Painting. Translation by T.Anderson (ed.), K.S. Malevich: Essays on Art 1915-1933, vol. 1, Copenhagen, 1969, pp. 19-21, 23-5, 26-36 and 38-41. Printed in: Harrison & Wood (ed). Art in Theory. 1900-2000. An Anthology Of Changing Ideas. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, pp173-183.

With the most primitive means the artist creates something which the most ingenious and efficient technology will never be able to create.

- Kasimir Malevich (1878-1935)

Once you hear the details of victory it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat
- Jean Paul Sartre

On est mille contre mille
A se croire les plus forts
Mais à l`heure imbécile
Où ça fait deux mille morts
On se retrouve seul
- Jacques Brel (1929-1978), "Seul"

I always admired atheists. I think it takes a lot of faith.
- Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Seoul Mates, 1991

The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank.
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 - 1882)

There is nobody as enslaved as the fanatic, the person in whom one impulse, one value, has assumed ascendancy over all others.
- Milton R. Sapirstein

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.
- Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983)

Good taste is the enemy of creativity
- Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Men cling passionately to old traditions and display intense reluctance to modify customary modes of behavior, as innovators at all times have found to their cost. The dead-weight of conservatism, largely a lazy and cowardly distaste for the strenuous and painful activity of real thinking, has undoubtedly retarded human progress..
- V. Gordon Childe, Man Makes Himself, p. 31

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "Julius Caesar", Act II Scene 2

A little bad taste is like a nice dash of paprika
- Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950), Man and Superman (1903), Maxims for Revolutionists

Good taste is the worst vice ever invented
- Edith Sitwell (1887-1964)