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Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin (7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist painter; From 1895 he lived and painted in Papeete on Tahiti.

Quotes of Paul Gauguin

 * chronologically arranged, after the date of Gauguin's quotes

1870s - 1880s

 * My Dear Mr. Pissarro; - I accept with pleasure the invitation that you and Mr. Degas were kind enough to extend to me. And naturally in that case I shall abide by all the rules that govern your Societe. Based on this decision, I also have the membership dues available. I will probably see you at Miss Latouche's and we will talk about this.
 * Quote from a short letter of Gauguin, 3 April 1879, to French artist to Pissarro; as cited on 'Paul Gauguin Autograph Letter Signed to Camille Pissarro' - Nade D. Sanders
 * Gauguin accepted membership in the Societe Anonyme Cooperative des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs, formed in 1873 by Pissarro, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley for the purpose of exhibiting their artwork independently
 * Painting is the most beautiful of all arts. In it, all sensations are condensed, at its aspect everyone may create romance at the will of his imagination, and at a glance have his soul invaded by the most profound memories, no efforts of memory, everything summed up in one moment. Complete art which sums up all the others and completes them. Like music, it acts on the soul through the intermediary of the senses, the harmonious tones corresponding to the harmonies of sounds, but in painting, a unity is obtained which is not possible in music, where the accords follow one another, and the judgement experiences a continuous fatigue if one wants to reunite the end and the beginning. In the main, the ear is an inferior sense to the eye. The hearing can only grasp a single sound at one time, whereas the sight takes in everything and at the same time simplifies at its will.
 * La peinture est le plus beau de tous les arts; en lui se résument toutes les sensations, à son aspect chacun peut, au gré de son imagination, créer le roman, d'un seul coup d'œil avoir l'âme envahie par les plus profonds souvenirs; point d'effort de mémoire, tout résumé en un seul instant. — Art complet qui résume tous les autres et les complète. — Comme la musique, il agit sur l'âme par l'intermédiaire des sens, les tons harmonieux correspondant aux harmonies des sons; mais en peinture on obtient une unité impossible en musique où les accords viennent les uns après les autres, et le jugement éprouve alors une fatigue incessante s'il veut réunir la fin au commencement. En somme, l'oreille est un sens inférieur à celui de l'œil. L'ouïe ne peut servir qu'à un seul son à la fois, tandis que la vue embrasse tout, en même temps qu'à son gré elle simplifie.
 * Quote of Gauguin from: Notes Synthéthiques (ca. 1884-1885), ed. Henri Mahaut, in Vers et prose (July-September 1910), p. 52; translation from John Rewald, Gauguin (Hyperion Press, 1938), p. 161.

 * This Cézanne [a 'Still life with Compotier, Fruit and Glass', Cézanne made c. 1879-1882!!], that you ask me for is a pearl of exceptional quality and I already have refused three hundred francs for it; it is one of my most treasured possessions, and except in absolute necessity, I would give up my last shirt before the picture.
 * Quote in a letter (June 1888) to Gauguin's friend Émile Schuffenecker; as cited in Impressionism: A Centenary Exhibition, Anne Distel, Michel Hoog, Charles S. Moffett, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (New York, N.Y.) 1975, p. 56

 * How do you see this tree? Is it really green? Use green, then, the most beautiful green on your palette. And that shadow, rather blue? Don't be afraid to paint it as blue as possible.
 * Comment voyez-vous cet arbre? Il est bien vert? Mettez donc du vert, le plus beau vert de votre palette; — et cette ombre, plutôt bleue? Ne craignez pas la peindre aussi bleue que possible.
 * Quote from a conversation in 1888, Pont-Aven, with Paul Sérusier as cited by Maurice Denis, inL'influence de Paul Gauguin, in Occident (October 1903) and published in Du symbolisme au classicisme. Théories (1912), ed. Olivier Revault d'Allonnes (Paris, 1964), p. 51.

 * With this painting, I tried to make everything breathe faith, quiet suffering, religious and primitive style and great nature with its scream.
 * in a letter to Theo van Gogh (1889-11-20)
 * Gauguin is referring to the painting Breton Calvary: The Green Christ.

The Writings of a Savage (1996)

 * Quotes of Gauguin from: The Writings of a Savage (1996), an anthology of his writings ed. Daniel Guérin, trans. Eleanor Levieux, Da Capo Press, New York ISBN 1-55778-272-5

 * freely and madly; you will make progress.. .Above all, don't sweat over a painting; a great sentiment can be rendered immediately..
 * Don't copy nature too closely. Art is an abstraction; as you dream amide nature, extrapolate art from it and concentrate on what you will create as a result.
 * pp. 5 & 22: Gauguin is advising a fellow painter, 1885

 * A great sentiment can be rendered immediately. Dream on it and look for the simplest form in which you can express it.
 * p. 5: Letter to Emile Schuffenecker, (Copenhagen, 14 January 1885)

 * I borrow some subject or other from life or from nature, and, using it as a pretext, I arrange lines and colors so as to obtain symphonies, harmonies that do not represent a thing that is real, in the vulgar sense of the word, and do not directly express any idea, but are supposed to make you think the way music is supposed to make you think, unaided by ideas or images, simply through the mysterious affinities that exist between our brains and such arrangements of colors and lines.
 * p. 109

 * I love Brittany; I find wildness and primitiveness there. When my wooden shoes ring on this granite, I hear the muffled, dull, and powerful tone which I try to achieve in painting.
 * p. 109: in a letter to a friend, c. 1886

 * In my figures [of his famous painting 'Vision After the Sermon'] I have achieved a great simplicity, which is both rustic and superstitious... ..In this picture the landscape and the struggle [between Jacob wrestling with the angel ] exist only in the imagination of the people whom the sermon has moved to prayer. That's why there is a contrast between the people, depicted naturally, and the struggle in its unnatural and dis-proportioned landscape.
 * p. 24: quote in his letter to Vincent van Gogh, c. 1888

 * Nature has mysterious infinities and imaginative power. It is always varying the productions it offers to us. The artist himself is one of nature's means.
 * p. 39: 'Huysmans and Redon', (written in 1889, published 1953)

1890s - 1910s

 * Life at Papeete soon became a burden. It was Europe, the Europe which I had thought to shake off — and that under the aggravating circumstances of colonial snobbism, and the imitation, grotesque even to the point of caricature, of our customs, fashions, vices, and absurdities of civilization.  Was I to have made this far journey, only to find the very thing which I had fled?
 * Quote from Noa Noa ,(1893) [Dover, 1985, ISBN 0-486-24859-3 ], p. 2.

 * 'Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?'
 * D'où venons-nous? Que sommes-nous? Où allons-nous?
 * Title of his large painting, 1897

 * Many people say that I don't know how to draw because I don't draw particular forms. When will they understand that execution, drawing and color (in other words, style) must be in harmony with the poem?
 * in a letter to Charles Morice (July 1901), from French Paintings and Painters from the Fourteenth Century to Post-Impressionism, ed. Gerd Muesham [Frederick Ungar, 1970, ISBN 0-8044-6521-5 ], p. 551

 * If we observe the totality of Camille Pissarro's works, we find there, despite the fluctuations, not only an extreme artistic will which never lies, but what is more, an essentially intuitive pure-bred art.. .He looked at everybody, you say! Why not? Everyone looked at him, too, but denied him. He was one of my masters and I do not deny him.
 * Quote c. 1902, in Racontars d'un Rapin, Paul Gauguin; as quoted in 'Introduction' of Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien, ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro – (translated from the unpublished French letters by Lionel Abel); Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, p. 15
 * After Paul Cezanne it was Gauguin who came to ask advice and painted landscape at the side of the much elder Pissarro. The traces of this apprenticeship as an impressionist were soon to disappear from Gauguin's works, but shortly before he died, he wrote these sentences about his former teacher

 * Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge — and has to content oneself with dreaming.
 * Quote in Avant et Après, (1903); taken from Paul Gauguin's Intimate Journals, trans. (1923) Van Wyck Brooks [Dover, 1997, ISBN 0-486-29441-2 ], p. 2

 * With what is he concerned? Drawing was at its lowest ebb; it had to be restored. Looking at these nudes, I exclaim, 'Drawing has come back again!' As a man and painter he sets an example. 'Degas' is one of those rare masters who could have had anything he wanted, yet he scorned decorations, honors, fortune, without bitterness, without jealousy.
 * Quote of Paul Gauguin, in Avant et après (1903)

 * [In] painting...all sensations are condensed, everyone...with a single glance [has] his soul invaded by the most profound recollections...everything is summed up in one instant. Like music, it acts on the soul through the intermediary of the senses: harmonious colors correspond to the harmonies of sound.
 * Quote from Gauguin's unfinished essay 'Notes Synthetiques', published in the July / September 1910 issue of ' Vers et Prose' XXII, pp. 51-55, as cited in: Shannon N. Pritchard, Gino Severini and the symbolist aesthetics of his futurist dance imagery, 1910-1915 Diss. uga, 2003, p. 23
 * Gauguin's essay 'Notes Synthetiques' was written in Pont -Aven in 1888 and left incomplete. His essay was first published in 'Vers et Prose' XXII

 * I have lingered among the nymphs of Corot, dancing in the sacred wood of Ville-d'Avray.
 * quote in a letter - late in Gauguin's life, from the Marquesas-Islands; as quoted by Colin B. Bailey, in The Annenberg Collection: Masterpieces of Impressionism and Post-impressionism, publish. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2009, p. 185

The Writings of a Savage (1996)

 * Quotes of Gauguin from: The Writings of a Savage (1996), an anthology of his writings ed. Daniel Guérin, trans. Eleanor Levieux, Da Capo Press, New York ISBN 1-55778-272-5

 * I must confess that I too am a woman and that I am always prepared to applaud a woman who is more daring than I, and is equal to a man in fighting for freedom of behavior.
 * p. xxvii: Quote from Le Sourire (Tahiti, August 1899)

 * I do not paint by copying nature. Everything I do springs from my wild imagination.
 * p. 22: quote in a letter to Ambroise Vollard, 1900

 * I am leaving in order to have peace and quiet, to be rid of the influence of civilization. I want only to do simple, very simple art, and to be able to do that, I have to immerse myself in virgin nature, see no one but savages, live their life, with no other thought in mind but to render, the way a child would, the concepts formed in my brain and to do this with the aid of nothing but the primitive means of art, the only means that are good and true.
 * p. 48: quoted in the interview 'Paul Gauguin Discussing His Paintings', Jules Huret, printed in L'Écho de Paris, (23 February 1891)

 * I am a great artist and I know it. It's because of what I am that I have endured so much suffering, so as to pursue my vocation, otherwise I would consider myself a rogue — which is what many people think I am, for that matter. Oh well, what difference does it make. What upsets me the most is not so much the poverty as the things that perpetually get in the way of my art, which I cannot carry out the way I feel and which I would carry out if it weren't for the poverty that is like a straitjacket. You tell me I am wrong to stay away from the artist[ic] center. No, I am right; I've known for a long time what I am doing and why I am doing it. My artistic center is in my brain and nowhere else, and I am strong because I am never thrown off-course by other people and because I do what is in me.
 * Original: Je suis un grand artiste et je le sais. C'est parce que je le suis que j'ai tellement enduré de souffrances. Pour poursuivre ma voie, sinon je me considérerai comme un brigand. Ce que je suis du reste pour beaucoup de personnes. Enfin, qu'importe! Ce qui me chagrine le plus c'est moins la misère que les empêchements perpétuels à mon art que je ne puis faire comme je le sens et comme je pourais le faire sans la misère qui me lie les bras. Tu me dis que j'ai tort de rester éloigné du centre artistique. Non, j'ai raison, je sais depuis longtemps ce que je fais et pourquoi je le fais.  Mon centre artistique est dans mon cerveau et pas ailleurs et je suis fort parce que je ne suis jamais dérouté par les autres et je fais ce qui est en moi.
 * pp. 53-54: Quote in a letter to his wife, Mette (Tahiti, March 1892)

 * A young man who is unable to commit a folly is already an old man.
 * p. 68: from his manuscript, known as 'Cahier pour Aline' (ca. 1892-1893)

 * Your Nordic blue eyes looked attentively at the paintings hanging on the walls. I felt stirrings of rebellion: a whole clash between your civilization and my barbarism. Civilization from which you suffer. Barbarism which for me is a rejuvenation.
 * Original: Votre œil bleu du nord regardait attentivement les tableaux pendus aux murs. J’eus comme le pressentiment d’une révolte : tout un choc entre votre civilisation et ma barbarie. Civilisation dont vous souffrez. Barbarie qui est pour moi un rajeunissement.
 * p. 105: quote from his letter to August Strindberg (5 May 1895)

 * In art, there are only two types of people: revolutionaries and plagiarists. And in the end, doesn't the revolutionary's work become official, once the State takes it over?
 * p. 107: in his letter, published in Le Soir, (25 April 1895)

 * Copying nature — what is that supposed to mean? Follow the masters! But why should one follow them? The only reason they are masters is that they didn't follow anybody!
 * p. 108: cited by Eugène Tardieu, 'Interview with Paul Gauguin,' in L'Écho de Paris, (13 May 1895)

 * In order to produce something new, you have to return to the original source, to the childhood of mankind.
 * p. 110: cited by Eugène Tardieu, 'Interview with Paul Gauguin,' in L'Écho de Paris, (13 May 1895)

 * A time will come when people will think I am a myth, or rather something the newspapers have made up.
 * p. 125: letter to Georges-Daniel de Monfreid (Tahiti, October 1897)

 * The critic asks me: 'So you are a Symbolist? I mean well and I would like to learn; why don't you explain Symbolism to me'.. I answer.. .'Well, my paintings probably speak Hebrew, which you do not understand, so there is no point in continuing the conversation.
 * p. 130: quote in 1898

 * As I wanted to suggest a luxuriant and untamed type of nature, a tropical sun that sets aglow everything around it, I was obliged to give my figures a suitable setting. It is indeed the outdoor life — yet intimate at the same time, in the thickets and the shady streams, these women whispering in an immense palace decorated by nature itself, with all the riches that Tahiti has to offer. This is the reason behind all these fabulous colors, this subdued and silent glow.  "But none of this exists!"  "Oh yes it does, as an equivalent of the grandeur, the depth, the mystery of Tahiti, when you have to express it on a canvas measuring only one square meter."  Very subtle, very knowing in her naïveté is the Tahitian Eve. The riddle hiding in the depth of her childlike eyes is still incommunicable to me.
 * p. 137: Diverse Choses, his notebook (1896 - 1898)

 * At an exhibition in London, one sagacious critic wrote: 'Monsieur Degas seems a good pupil of Nittis!' Doesn't this reflect that mania which men of letters have for squabbling in court over who had a given idea first? And the mania spreads to painters who take great care of their originality.
 * p. 219: quote in 1898

 * ..so before I died I wanted to paint a large canvas that I had worked out in my head, and all month long I worked [on Tahiti] day and night at fever pitch.. .It's all done without a model.
 * pp. 159-160: in a letter from Tahiti to a friend, 1898
 * late quote about the start of his famous large painting 'Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going'

 * My eyes close and uncomprehendingly see the dream in the infinite space that stretches away, elusive, before me.
 * Original: Mes yeux se ferment pour voir sans comprendre le rêve dans l'espace infini qui fuit devant moi.
 * pp. 184-185: Letter to André Fontainas, March 1899

 * I was so bent on putting all my energy in its 'Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going' before dying [suffering from syphilis, Gauguin decided to commit suicide at the end], such painful passion amid terrible circumstances, and such a clear vision without corrections that the hastiness of it disappears and life bursts from it. It does not stink of models, professionalism, and the so-called rules that I have always disregarded.
 * p. 160: Gauguin's quote in his letter from Tahiti to a friend, c. 1899

 * No one wants my painting because it is different from other people's — peculiar, crazy public that demands the greatest possible degree of originality on the painter's part and yet won't accept him unless his work resembles that of the others!
 * p. 205: in a letter to Ambroise Vollard, January 1900

 * You have long known what I have tried to establish: the right to dare everything; yet the difficulty I have had finding enough money to live on has been too great, and my capacities have not produced a very big result but the mechanism has got underway nevertheless. The public does not owe me anything because the pictorial work I have done is only relatively good, but the painters who benefit from that freedom today do owe me something.
 * p. 214: in a letter to George-Daniel de Monfreid, Marquesas Islands, October 1902

 * ..color being enigmatic in itself.. ..then to be logical we cannot use it any other way than enigmatically..
 * p. 145

 * At the age of ten, twenty, a hundred, very young, a little older, and very old, an artist is always an artist. Isn't he better at some times, some moments, than at others? Never impeccable, since he is a living, human being?
 * p. 219: quote from 1903

undated

 * In Europe men and women have intercourse because they love each other. In the South Seas they love each other because they have had intercourse. Who is right?
 * Quoted by Bengt Danielsson in Gauguin in the South Seas (1966)

Quotes about Paul Gauguin

 * chronologically arranged, after date of the quotes about Paul Gauguin

 * My dear Lucien, Yesterday Gauguin came to spend the holidays and make some studies. He told me that he was working on a project which may materialize some time, the project is to make models for impressionist tapestries. He asked me to try my hand at this, and do something revolutionary. Naturally I accepted, mostly with the idea of opening up a field for you [Lucien]. Evidently this is an easily exploited field of industrial art, only one must draw, and draw often. When something develops I shall let you know.
 * Quote of Camille Pissarro, Osny, 16 June 1883, in a letter to his son Lucien; from Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro; from the unpublished French letters; transl. Lionel Abel; Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, pp. 35-36

 * Yesterday I received a letter from Gauguin, who probably had heard from Durand that I did some good work here. He is going to look me up and study the place's possibilities from the point of view of art and practicality. He is naive enough to think that since the people in Rouen are very wealthy, they can easily be induced to buy some paintings.. .Gauguin disturbs me very much, he is so deeply commercial, at least he gives that impression. I haven't the heart to point out to him how false and unpromising is his attitude..  ..his needs are great, his family being used to luxury, just the same his attitude can only hurt him.
 * Quote of Camille Pissarro, Rouen 31 October 1883, in a letter to his son Lucien; from Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro; from the unpublished French letters; transl. Lionel Abel; Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, p. 44

 * Gauguin has become intimate with Degas once more, and goes to see him all the time - isn't this seesaw of interests strange? Forgotten are the difficulties of last year at the seashore, forgotten the sarcasms the Master hurled at the sectarian [= Gauguin], forgotten all that he [Gauguin] told me about the egotism and common side of Guillaumin. I was naive, I defended him [Gauguin] to the limit, and I argued against everybody. It is all so human and so sad. - They are angry with us [the Neo-Impressionists,] and will not pardon me for being sincere enough to want to be faithful to my deepest convictions.
 * Quote of Camille Pissarro, in a letter, Paris, November 1886, to his son Lucien; in Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro; from the unpublished French letters; transl. Lionel Abel; Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, pp. 81-82

 * Gauguin is gone.. ..completely disappeared.. ..but I did hear that this summer at the sea shore [at  Pont-Aven ] he laid down the law to a group of young disciples, who hung on the words of the master, that austere sectarian. At any rate it must be admitted that he has finally acquired great influence. This comes of course from years of hard and meritorious work - as a sectarian!
 * Quote of Camille Pissarro, in a letter, Paris, 22 January 1887, to his son Lucien; in Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro; from the unpublished French letters; transl. Lionel Abel; Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, pp. 96-97
 * Paul Gauguin had spent the year of 1886 at Pont-Aven in Brittany, France. He became the leader of the painters there, at the pension of 'La mere Gloannec'

 * Bracquemond told me [Pissarro] that he took some of Gauguin's pictures with him, hoping to sell them; he considered them good paintings but.. ..strange.. .A little confused, but after all interesting.. .Alas! All those to whom he showed the pictures became literally angry, conceiving that they were being taken in..  .He told me that he strongly urged Gauguin not to show his paintings to the [Paris'] dealer in question.
 * Quote of Camille Pissarro, in a letter, Eragny, 23 January 1887, to his son Lucien; in Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro; from the unpublished French letters; transl. Lionel Abel; Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, p. 97

 * [..according to Gauguin] the impression of nature must be wedded to the aesthetic sentiment which chooses, arranges, simplifies and synthesizes. The painter ought not to rest until he has given birth to the child of his imagination.. ..begotten in a union of his mind with reality. Gauguin insisted on a logical construction of composition, on a harmonious apportionment of light and dark colors, the simplification of forms and proportions, so as to endow the outline's of forms with a powerful and eloquent expression.. ..He also insisted upon luminous and pure colors.
 * Quote of Paul Sérusier, 1888, about Paul Gauguin; in Pierre Bonnard, John Rewald; MoMA - distribution, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1918, p. 13
 * Sérusier encountered in his summer vacation in Pont-Aven in Brittany [Summer 1888], briefly Paul Gauguin. He also made there a small landscape, painted under Gauguin's direction. Back in Paris, October 1888, Sérusier explained his Nabis friends (Denis, Pierre Bonnard and Vuillard) the artistic lessons Gauguin taught him - as reported by John Rewald, in his book Pierre Bonnard, p. 13-14

 * Gauguin interests me very much as a man — very much. For a long time now it has seemed to me that in our nasty profession of painting we are most sorely in need of men with the hands and the stomachs of workmen. More natural tastes — more loving and more charitable temperaments — than the decadent dandies of the Parisian boulevards have. Well, here we are without the slightest doubt in the presence of a virgin creature with savage instincts. With Gauguin blood and sex prevail over ambition.
 * Vincent van Gogh, in a letter to Émile Bernard (ca. 1888-11-02)

 * Gauguin, if he'll accept it, you [Theo] shall give him a version of the [painting] 'Berceuse' (see:[] that wasn't mounted on a stretching frame, and to Bernard too, as a token of friendship. But if Gauguin wants sunflowers it's only absolutely fair that he gives you something that you like as much in exchange. Gauguin himself above all liked the sunflowers later, when he had seen them for a long time.
 * Quote of Vincent van Gogh, in a letter to Theo, from Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, c. 23 May 1889 - original manuscript of letter 776, at Van Gogh Museum, location Amsterdam - inv. nos. b322 a-c V/1962, see the letter []
 * Van Gogh wanted Gauguin to have the two repetitions: 'Sunflowers in a vase' [see [] and 'Sunflowers in a vase' []

 * Paul Gauguin, that curious artist, that alien whose mien and the look in whose eyes vaguely remind one of Rembrandt's 'Portrait of a Man' in the Galerie Lacaze — this friend of mine likes to make one feel that 'a good picture is equivalent to a good deed'; not that he says so, but it is difficult to be on intimate terms with him without being aware of a certain moral responsibility. A few days before we parted, when illness forced me to enter an asylum, I tried to paint 'his empty place'. It is a study of his armchair of dark, red-brown wood, the seat of greenish straw, and in the absent person's place a lighted candlestick and some modern novels.
 * Quote of Vincent van Gogh, in a letter to Theo, from Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, 9 or 10 February 1890 (1890), published in The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, Vol. 3 (1958) New York Graphic Society, p. 256; see original letter: []
 * 'Gauguin's chair', (see []). Van Gogh painted this painting around 19 November, at which time he described it as a 'rather funny' study (see letter 721). That he painted it several days before Gauguin's departure as a symbol of his empty seat is an interpretation given here with hindsight

 * Brother Nabi, ..first of all, forgive the incoherence of my last letter. I am feeling remorsed about what I told you about Paul Gauguin. There is no humbug about him, not, at any rate, with respect to those he knows are capable of understanding him. I have lived with him for the past fifteen days in the closest association [in [[w:Pont-Aven|Pont-Aven]. We share a room. I have told him what I dislike about his work; what I said can be regarded as a sally against the ingrained habits of contemporary painting.
 * Quote of Paul Sérusier, from his letter (Pont-Aven, Brittanny), to Maurice Denis, June/July 1889; in ABC de la peinture, ;Paris, Floury, 1950, p. 42-45; as quoted in Symbolist Art Theories: A Critical Anthology, ed. Henri Dorra; University of California Press, 1994, p. 237-38

 * His art is strangely cerebral and passionate, uneven still, but poignant and superb in its very unevenness. A sorrowful work, for to understand it, to feel the shock of it, we ourselves must know sorrow and the irony of sorrow, which is the threshold of mystery. It sometimes rises to the height of the mystical act of faith; sometimes it obliterates itself and grimaces in the gloom of doubt. It always emanates the bitter and violent aroma of the poisons of the flesh. There is a dazzling and savory mixture of barbaric splendor, Catholic liturgy, Hindu reverie, Gothic imagery, and obscure and subtle symbolism; there are harsh realities and distraught flights into poetry, through which M. Gauguin creates an altogether new and personal art — the art of a painter and poet, of an apostle and demon, an art which instills anguish.
 * Original: Oeuvre étrangement cérébrale, passionnante, inégale encore, mais jusque dans ses inégalités poignante et superbe. Oeuvre douloureuse, car pour la comprendre, pour en ressentir le choc, il faut avoir soi-même connu la douleur et l'ironie de la douleur, qui est le seuil du mystère.  Parfois, elle s'élève jusqu'à la hauteur d'un mystique acte de foi; parfois, elle s'efface et grimace dans les ténèbres du doute.  Et, toujours émane d'elle l'amer et violent arôme des poisons de la chair. Il y a dans cette œuvre un mélange inquiétant et savoureux de splendeur barbare, de liturgie catholique, de rêverie indoue, d'imagerie gothique, de symbolisme obscur et subtil; il ya des réalités âpres et des vols éperdus de poésie, par où Gauguin crée un art absolument personnel et tout nouveau; art de peintre et de poète, d'apôtre et de démon, et qui angoisse.
 * Quote of Octave Mirbeau, 'Paul Gauguin,' in L'Écho de Paris, 16 February 1891

 * The Japanese practised this art as did the Chinese, and their symbols are wonderfully natural, but then they were not Catholics, and Gauguin is a Catholic. - I do not criticize Gauguin for having painted a rose background nor do I object to the two struggling fighters and the Breton peasants in the foreground. What I dislike is that he copied these elements from the Japanese, the Byzantine painters and others. I criticize him for not applying his synthesis to our modern philosophy which is absolutely social, anti-authoritarian and anti-mystical. - There is where the problem becomes serious. This is a step backwards; Gauguin is not a seer, he is a schemer.. .The symbolists also take this line! What do you think? They must be fought like the pest!
 * Quote of Camille Pissarro, in a letter to his son Lucien, 20 April 1891, from: Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien, ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro – (translated from the unpublished French letters by Lionel Abel); Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, p. 163

 * It is extraordinary that anyone could put so much mystery into so much brightness.
 * Original: ll est extraordinaire qu'on puisse mettre tant de mystère dans tant d'éclat.
 * Quote of Stéphane Mallarmé, after seeing an exhibition of Gauguin's work in November 1893; cited by Gauguin at the heading of chapter I of Noa Noa (1893) and in a letter to André Fontainas (March 1899); also quoted in Charles Morice, Paul Gauguin (H. Floury, 1920; digitized by the University of Michigan, 2007), p. 220.

 * What is he, then? He is Gauguin, the savage who hates the burden of our civilization, a sort of Titan who, jealous of the creator, makes his own little world in his spare time, a child who takes toys apart in order to build others from the pieces, one who denies and defies, who prefers to see the sky red rather than blue like the rest of us.
 * Quote of August Strindberg, in a letter to Gauguin (1 February 1895)

 * I have never wanted and never will accept the lack of modeling or gradation: it's an absurdity. Gauguin was not a painter; he only made Chinese pictures.
 * Original: Jamais je n'ai voulu et je n'accepterai le manque de modelé ou de graduation. C'est un non-sens. Gauguin n'était pas un peintre, il n'a fait que des images chinoises.
 * Quote of Paul Cézanne, as cited in Émile Bernard, Souvenirs sur Paul Cézanne (Société des trente, 1912; digitized by University of Michigan Press, 2007), p. 35.

 * I advised him [Gauguin] to go to New Orleans [where Degas stayed for a few months and painted there], but he decided it was too civilized. He had to have people around him with flowers on their heads and rings in their noses before he could feel at home.
 * Quote of Edgar Degas, as cited in Ambroise Vollard, Degas: An Intimate Portrait (1927), translated by Randolph T. Weaver (Dover, 1986, ISBN 0-486-25131-4 ), p. 48

 * Paul Gauguin, then [March 1885] still a Parisian stockbroker, had entered art as a collector of impressionist paintings and thus came in contact with Camille Pissarro. When Gauguin began to paint, it was Pissarro who got his works admitted to the exhibitions of the impressionist group. During his stay at Osny in 1883 [with old Pissarro] Gauguin painted the entrance to the village at Pissarro's side.
 * Quote of John Rewald in Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien ed. John Rewald, with assistance of  Lucien Pissarro; from the unpublished French letters; transl. Lionel Abel; Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, p. 25

 * Gauguin's work is symbolic, and he himself is a myth. He rejected the values of bourgeois society and of a machine civilization. His gesture had its sordid side, but retrospectively it seems to have been appropriate, coming at a time when the world was preparing for annihilating wars. It was not a useful example: we cannot all go and live on South Sea islands, and, as I have said before in this connection, modern man carries his civilization like a pack on his back, and cannot cast if off. But he can nevertheless protest against the burden, and state the real values of life. So Gauguin did, in paintings that are symbols of eternal truths, images of great beauty and serenity.
 * Quote of Herbert Read, 'Gauguin: Return to Symbolism,' Art News Annual, XXV (1956).

 * The last thing that Bonnard and Vuillard and Matisse [artists of Nabis wanted to do was paint portentous allegories about the destiny of mankind, as Gauguin did.
 * Quote of John Russell, The Meanings of Modern Art (Museum of Modern Art, 1975, ISBN 0-870-70477-X ), p. 10.

 * The popular fancy that Gauguin 'discovered himself' as a painter in Tahiti is quite wrong. All the components of his work — the flat patterns of colour, the wreathing outlines, the desire to make symbolic statements about fate and emotion, the interest in 'primitive' art, and the thought that color could function as a language - were assembled in France before 1891.
 * Quote of Robert Hughes, The Shock of the New (Random House, 1981; digitized 2007, ISBN 0-394-51378-9 ), p. 129.

 * One may wonder if any painter in the last century put more meaning into his sense of color than Gauguin.
 * Quote of Robert Hughes, 'Paul Gauguin,' in Nothing If Not Critical: Selected Essays on Art and Artists (Viking/Penguin, 1991, ISBN 0-394-58026-5 ), p. 152.

 * Gauguin was a great writer and I just read Noa, Noa, and Van Gogh wrote the most amazing autobiography.
 * 1991 interview in Conversations with Maxine Hong Kingston (1998)

title: Paul Gauguin


text:
Paul Harvey

Paul Harvey Aurandt (4 September 1918 – 28 February 2009) was an American radio broadcaster, known for his idiosyncratic delivery of news stories with dramatic pauses, quirky intonations, and many of his standard lead-ins and sign offs.

Quotes

 * Mr. President, I love you, but you're wrong.
 * Statement regarding Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War (1972), as quoted in "Paul Harvey dead at 90" in Chicago Tribune (28 February 2009)

 * I’m not nearly so anxious about the lousy Communists as I am about lazy Americans.
 * “Paul Harvey finds more satisfaction in life after Baptism”, Tulsa Daily World, March 29, 1973

 * In times like these, it's helpful to remember that there have always been times like these.
 * As quoted in Respectful Treatment : The Human Side of Medical Care (1977) by Martin R. Lipp; also in Wisdom for the Soul : Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006) by Larry Chang, p. 271.

 * We sent men with rifles into Afghanistan and Iraq, and we kept our best weapons in their silos. Even now, we're standing there dying, daring to do nothing decisive because we've declared ourselves to be better than our terrorist enemies, more moral, more civilized. Our image is at stake, we insist. But we didn't come this far because we are made of sugar candy. Once upon a time, we elbowed our way onto and into this continent by giving smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans. Yes, that was biological warfare. And we used every other weapon we could get our hands on, to grab this land from whomever, and we grew prosperous. And yes, we greased the skids with the sweat of slaves. And so it goes with most great nation-states, which feeling guilty about their savage pasts, eventually civilize themselves out of business, and wind up invaded and ultimately dominated by the lean, hungry, up-and-coming who are not made of sugar candy.
 * Commenting on historical military and social policies, during his ABC News broadcast (23 June 2005); quoted in "Agression Dominates the Airwaves" by Saul Landau, at Transnational Institute (19 July 2005).

 * This is the highest honor I have received since 60-some years ago, when Angel said "I do."
 * On how much his wife "Angel" meant to him, just before receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House (9 November 2005), as quoted in "Paul Harvey's Wife Dies at Age 92" in ABC News (4 May 2008).

 * Tomorrows forecast for Afghanistan cloudy and ten thousand degrees. September 12, 2001

Regular tag lines

 * Regular expressions used on his radio programs

Standard sign ons and sign offs:

 * Hello, Americans, This is Paul Harvey. Standby for news.

 * Good morning Americans ...

 * Page Two ...

 * And now … Page Three

 * Page Four ...

 * Join me later today for this "Rest of the Story" story … over this ABC Radio Network station.

 * Hello Americans, I'm Paul Harvey. You know what the news is -- in a minute, you're going to hear the rest of the story.

 * And now you know -- the rest of the story.

 * Paul Harvey … Good Day!

 Describing news stories:

 * Just what not why...

 * It's not one world.

 * Not all that we call progress is progress.

 * Today's quote worth requoting...

 * Now wash out your ears with this.

 * Now … for what it's worth.

 * In USA Today … today.

 * In shirt-sleeve English ...

 * Holy Shamoley ...

 Introducing personal reflections or items related to broadcasting:

 * And now … over my shoulder a backward glance ...

 * Shop talk ...

Attributed

 * Man—despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication, and his many accomplishments—owes his existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.

Quotes about Harvey

 * Paul Harvey was the most listened to man in the history of radio. … There is no one who will ever come close to him.
 * Bruce DuMont, president of the Museum of Broadcast Communications, as quoted in "Paul Harvey dead at 90" in Chicago Tribune (28 February 2009)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Paul Harvey


text:
Lenny Bruce

Leonard Alfred Schneider (October 13, 1925 – August 3, 1966), better known by his stage name Lenny Bruce, was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist.

Quotes

 * Life is a four-letter word.
 * In the Halls of Justice, the only justice is in the halls.
 * "The comedy master turned martyr", BBC News (August 3, 2006)

 * If I get busted in New York, the freest city in the world, that will be the end of my career.
 * "New York pardons late Lenny Bruce", BBC News (December 23, 2003)

 * A Jew, in the dictionary, is one who is descended from the ancient tribes of Judea, or one who is regarded as a descendant from that tribe. That's what it says in the dictionary, but you and I know what a Jew is: One Who Killed Our Lord... there should be a statute of limitations for that crime.
 * Lenny Bruce Without Tears (1972)

 * I want to perform an unnatural act.
 * Lenny as the Lone Ranger, in Thank You Mask Man''

 * If something about the human body disgusts you, the fault lies with the manufacturer.

Alternative: If God created the Body, and the Body is dirty, then the fault lies with the Manufacturer.
 * Lenny Bruce: Swear to tell the truth 1998

 * Are there any niggers here tonight? Could you turn on the house lights, please, and could the waiters and waitresses just stop serving, just for a second? And turn off this spot. Now what did he say? "Are there any niggers here tonight?" I know there's one nigger, because I see him back there working. Let's see, there's two niggers. And between those two niggers sits a kike. And there's another kike— that's two kikes and three niggers. And there's a spic. Right? Hmm? There's another spic. Ooh, there's a wop; there's a polack; and, oh, a couple of greaseballs. And there's three lace-curtain Irish micks. And there's one, hip, thick, hunky, funky, boogie. Boogie boogie. Mm-hmm. I got three kikes here, do I hear five kikes? I got five kikes, do I hear six spics, I got six spics, do I hear seven niggers? I got seven niggers. Sold American. I pass with seven niggers, six spics, five micks, four kikes, three guineas, and one wop. Well, I was just trying to make a point, and that is that it's the suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness. Dig: if President Kennedy would just go on television, and say, "I would like to introduce you to all the niggers in my cabinet," and if he'd just say "nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger" to every nigger he saw, "boogie boogie boogie boogie boogie," "nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger" 'til nigger didn't mean anything anymore, then you could never make some six-year-old black kid cry because somebody called him a nigger at school.
 * From Julian Barry's screenplay for "Lenny"''
 * Lenny Bruce: Swear to tell the truth 1998

 * Take away the right to say "fuck" and you take away the right to say "fuck the government."
 * FUCK

 * The role of a comedian is to make the audience laugh, at a minimum of once every fifteen seconds.
 * quoted by Paul Krassner in Lenny Bruce: Swear to tell the truth 1998

 * I'm not a comedian. I'm Lenny Bruce.
 * quoted by Paul Krassner in Lenny Bruce: Swear to tell the truth 1998

 * You can't put tits and ass on the marquee!...Why not?...Because it's dirty and vulgar, that's why not!... Titties are dirty and vulgar?...Okay, we'll compromise. How about Latin? Gluteus maximus, pectoralis majors nightly...That's alright, that's clean, class with ass, I'll buy it...Clean to you, schmuck, but dirty to the Latins!
 * in The Carnegie Hall Concert 1961,

 * Let me tell you the truth. The truth is what is, and what should be is a fantasy. A terrible, terrible lie that someone gave to the people long ago.
 * quoted by Paul Krassner in Lenny Bruce: Swear to tell the truth 1998

 * I was arrested for using a ten-letter word that began with ‘c,’ and I would marry no woman who was not one.
 * quoted by Peter McWilliams in Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do

Quotes about Bruce

 * In alphabetical order by author or source.

 * Lenny Bruce's legacy is freedom of speech and telling it as it is, getting your life and putting it out on the table, telling everyone about it.
 * Eddie Izzard (comedian and actor) speaking on BBC Radio Two's documentary about Bruce.

 * That's what happened to Lenny Bruce. He got angry, and then he wasn't funny any more.
 * , satirist and songwriter.

 * Bruce was a great stage artist, a soloist of unbelievable virtuosity. The thousands of people who filled two houses of an old movie theater in Greenwich Village in December 1963 are a witness of that. So were the audiences that came back night after night during his month in London. The people who followed him were charmed by the free conversational directness of the man. He liked his audiences and took great pains to feel his way towards the individual temperament of each one. And if he felt comfortable with a group there was no end to the effort he would make to entertain and delight them. It’s not really true that he thrived on hostility, though he sometimes managed to put on a show of hard, glittering verve when the animals were in—people who talked loudly throughout his act, sounding "like tape played backwards." But generally an unfriendly audience made him stiff and defiant, and then he would sometimes become brutally dirty, just for the hell of it.
 * Jonathan Miller "On Lenny Bruce (1926–1966)", The New York Review of Books (October 6, 1966)
 * His year of birth is in error in the source.

 * One last four-letter word for Lenny: Dead. At forty. That's obscene.
 * Dick Schaap, sportswriter, broadcaster, and author, in a eulogy for Bruce published in Playboy magazine/

He talks about the nuances of race relations (viz. the white liberals who worship Negroes but somehow never meet them) ... about the techniques of masturbation and the psychological duplicity ("a horny hoax") involved in sleeping with a prostitute; about pain, and laughter, and dying. At times Mr. Bruce drawls and mumbles too privately, lapsing in to a welter of Yiddish phrases borrowed from the show-business world that reared him. ... But at the end he had broken through frontiers of language and feeling that one had hitherto thought inviolable ...
 * Lenny Bruce (The Establishment) [is] the most original, free-speaking, wild-thinking gymnast of language this inhibited island has ever engaged to amuse its citizens. Mr. Bruce is dark-hatred, dark-suited and American; and the virulent, free-associating manner in which he excoriates the hypocrisies of his compatriots has earned him the epithet "sick." He is in fact pan nihilist, part moralist. He slouches around the stage clutching a microphone, smiling as he improvises, caring as he smiles, seldom repeating in the second show what he said in the first, and always conducting what amounts to a rush job of psychoanalysis on the audience he is addressing.
 * Kenneth Tynan "Look Back in Quadruplicate" The Observer (London, April 29, 1962) p. 29

Lenny Bruce in song
That all my wealth won't buy me health So I smoke a pint of tea a day.
 * And I learned the truth from Lenny Bruce,
 * Simon and Garfunkel's A Simple Desultory Philippic[]

 * Oh, the language is a bit loose; It's decidedly not Mother Goose. Outside on the marquee This quotation you'll see: "I was shocked!" and it's signed Lenny Bruce.
 * Allan Sherman's It's A Most Unusal Play

He just showed the wise men of his day to be nothing more than fools
 * They said that he was sick 'cause he didn't play by the rules
 * Bob Dylan's Lenny Bruce.[]

 * Just don't forget your history, dirty Lenny died so we could all be free
 * Steve Earle's F The CC song on his album 'The Revolution Starts Now'[]

 * That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane - Lenny Bruce is not afraid.
 * R.E.M.'s song 'It's the End of the World (As We Know it)'

 * Mother Goose is on the loose, stealing lines from Lenny Bruce.
 * Phil Ochs' song 'The Harder They Fall'

 * I want to be Lenny Bruce.
 * Sacramento rock band Aesthetic featured a song titled "Lenny Bruce" on their 2003 album "Innocence Beneath the Dirt."

 * Lenny Bruce, declares a truce and plays his other hand. Marshall McLuhan, casual viewin', head buried in the sand.
 * Broadway Melody of 1974, by Genesis, from "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway"

 * For Halloween, I want to be Lenny Bruce, I want them to hate me, so you can love me on the sly.
 * Metric's "On the Sly"

 * Ginsberg, Dylan, Cunningham and Cage Lenny Bruce, Langston Hughes, to the stage
 * Rent

 * Lenny Bruce was trying to tell you many things before he died...
 * "Laws Must Change" by John Mayall

title: Lenny Bruce


text:
Hyman G. Rickover

Hyman George Rickover, U.S. Navy (27 January 1900 – 8 July 1986) was a United States Navy admiral who directed the original development of naval nuclear propulsion and controlled its operations for three decades as director of Naval Reactors. In addition, he oversaw the development of the Shippingport Atomic Power Station, the world's first commercial pressurized water reactor used for generating electricity. Rickover is known as the "Father of the Nuclear Navy".

Quotes

 * I'll be philosophical. Until about two billion years ago, it was impossible to have any life on earth; that is, there was so much radiation on earth you couldn't have any life — fish or anything. Gradually, about two billion years ago, the amount of radiation on this planet—and probably in the entire system—reduced and made it possible for some form of life to begin... Now when we go back to using nuclear power, we are creating something which nature tried to destroy to make life possible... Every time you produce radiation, you produce something that has a certain half-life, in some cases for billions of years. I think the human race is going to wreck itself, and it is important that we get control of this horrible force and try to eliminate it... I do not believe that nuclear power is worth it if it creates radiation. Then you might ask me why do I have nuclear powered ships. That is a necessary evil. I would sink them all. Have I given you an answer to your question?
 * On the hazards of nuclear power. Testimony to Congress (28 January 1982); published in Economics of Defense Policy: Hearing before the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, 97th Cong., 2nd sess., Pt. 1 (1982)

 * I am not proud of the part I played in it. I did it because it was necessary for the safety of this country. That's why I am such a great exponent of stopping this whole nonsense of war. Unfortunately limits — attempts to limit war have always failed. The lesson of history is when a war starts every nation will ultimately use whatever weapon it has available. ... Therefore, we must expect that if another war — a serious war — breaks out, we will use nuclear energy in some form.
 * On his reasoning in developing the nuclear arsenal of the US and on the prospects of nuclear war. Testimony to Congress (28 January 1982); published in Economics of Defense Policy: Hearing before the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, 97th Cong., 2nd sess., Pt. 1 (1982)

 * Fish don't vote.
 * Statement on why submarine names changed from fish to cities, as quoted in "BRIEFING; Navy Reverts to Fish" by James F. Clarity and Warren Weaver Jr., The New York Times (22 April 1985)

 * If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't.
 * As quoted in The New York Times (3 November 1986)

Paper Reactors, Real Reactors (1953)

 * "Paper Reactors, Real Reactors" (5 June 1953); Stating they were comments from the early 1950's Rickover read some of these statements as part of his testimony before Congress, published in AEC Authorizing Legislation: Hearings Before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (1970), p. 1702 Operation_Upshot-Knothole_-_Badger_001.jpg

 * An academic reactor or reactor plant almost always has the following basic characteristics: (1) It is simple. (2) It is small. (3) It is cheap. (4) It is light. (5) It can be built very quickly. (6) It is very flexible in purpose. (7) Very little development will be required. It will use off-the-shelf components. (8) The reactor is in the study phase. It is not being built now. On the other hand a practical reactor can be distinguished by the following characteristics: (1) It is being built now. (2) It is behind schedule. (3) It requires an immense amount of development on apparently trivial items. (4) It is very expensive. (5) It takes a long time to build because of its engineering development problems. (6) It is large. (7) It is heavy. (8) It is complicated.

 * The tools of the academic designer are a piece of paper and a pencil with an eraser. If a mistake is made, it can always be erased and changed. If the practical-reactor designer errs, he wears the mistake around his neck; it cannot be erased. Everyone sees it.

 * The academic-reactor designer is a dilettante. He has not had to assume any real responsibility in connection with his projects. He is free to luxuriate in elegant ideas, the practical shortcomings of which can be relegated to the category of "mere technical details." The practical-reactor designer must live with these same technical details. Although recalcitrant and awkward, they must be solved and cannot be put off until tomorrow. Their solution requires manpower, time and money.

 * Unfortunately for those who must make far-reaching decisions without the benefit of an intimate knowledge of reactor technology, and unfortunately for the interested public, it is much easier to get the academic side of an issue than the practical side. For a large part those involved with the academic reactors have more inclination and time to present their ideas in reports and orally to those who will listen. Since they are innocently unaware of the real but hidden difficulties of their plans, they speak with great facility and confidence. Those involved with practical reactors, humbled by their experiences, speak less and worry more.

 * Yet it is incumbent on those in high places to make wise decisions and it is reasonable and important that the public be correctly informed. It is consequently incumbent on all of us to state the facts as forthrightly as possible.

US Naval Postgraduate School Address (1954)

 * Address delivered to US Naval Postgraduate School (16 March 1954)

 * Some of the ideas I try to get across to the people who work for me are the following:

 * 1. More than ambition, more than ability, it is rules that limit contribution; rules are the lowest common denominator of human behavior. They are a substitute for rational thought.

 * 2. Sit down before fact with an open mind. Be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you learn nothing. Don't push out figures when facts are going in the opposite direction.

 * 3. Free discussion requires an atmosphere unembarrassed by any suggestion of authority or even respect. If a subordinate always agrees with his superior he is a useless part of the organization. In this connection there is a story of Admiral Sims when he was on duty in London in World War I. He called a conscientious hard-working officer in to him to explain why he was dissatisfied with the officer's work. The officer blushed and stammered when Sims pointed out that in all the time they had been working together the officer had never once disagreed with Sims.

 * 4. All men are by nature conservative but conservatism in the military profession is a source of danger to the country. One must be ready to change his line sharply and suddenly, with no concern for the prejudices and memories of what was yesterday. To rest upon formula is a slumber that, prolonged, means death.

 * 5. Success teaches us nothing; only failure teaches.

 * 6. Do not regard loyalty as a personal matter. A greater loyalty is one to the Navy or to the Country. When you know you are absolutely right, and when you are unable to do anything about it, complete military subordination to rules becomes a form of cowardice.

 * 7. To doubt one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man. Don't defend past actions; what is right today may be wrong tomorrow. Don't be consistent; consistency is the refuge of fools.

 * 8. Thoughts arising from practical experience may be a bridle or a spur.

 * 9. Optimism and stupidity are nearly synonymous.

 * 10. Avoid over-coordination. We have all observed months-long delays caused by an effort to bring all activities into complete agreement with a proposed policy or procedure. While the coordinating machinery is slowly grinding away, the original purpose is often lost. The essence of the proposals is being worn down as the persons most concerned impatiently await the decision. The process has been aptly called coordinating to death.

 * 11. A system under which it takes three men to check what one is doing is not control; it is systematic strangulation.

 * 12. A man, by working 24 hours a day, could multiply himself 3 times. To multiply himself more than 3 times the only recourse is to train others to take over some of his work.

Thoughts on Man's Purpose in Life (1974)

 * This is a lecture Rickover is recorded as giving in nearly identical form on several occasions from the 1970s onward; the earliest reference to such comments yet located occurs in "Thoughts on Man's Purpose in Life . . . and Other Matters", Proceedings Magazine Vol. 100/12/862 (December 1974), later presentations are recorded in "Thoughts on Man's Purpose in Life", at San Diego Rotary Club (10 February 1977) and the Second Annual Morgenthau Memorial Lecture (12 May 1982) · (PDF)

 * Voltaire once said: "Not to be occupied and not to exist are one and the same thing for a man." With those few words he captured the essence of a purpose in life: to work, to create, to excel, and to be concerned about the world and its affairs.

 * The question of what we can do to give purpose or meaning to our lives has been debated for thousands of years by philosophers and common men. Yet today we seem, if anything, further from the answer than before. Despite our great material wealth and high standard of living, people are groping for something that money cannot buy.

Among these principles of existence, responsibility is the one which forces man to become involved. Acceptance of responsibility means that the individual takes upon himself an obligation. '''Responsibility is broad and continuous. None of us are ever free of it, even if our work is unsuccessful.''' Responsibility implies a commitment to self which many are not willing to make; they are strongly attracted to accepting a course of action or direction for their lives imposed by an external source. Such a relationship absolves the individual from the personal decision-making process. He wraps himself in the security blanket of inevitability or dogma, and need not invest the enormous amounts of time, effort and, above all, the thought required to make creative decisions and meaningfully participate in the governance of his life. Responsibility also implies a commitment to others, or as Confucius taught, each of us is meant to rescue the world. It is the business of little minds to shrink from this task or to go about it without enthusiasm. Neither art, nor science, nor any of the great works of humanity would ever come into being without enthusiasm. The sense of responsibility for doing a job right seems to be declining. In fact, '''the phrase "I am not responsible" has become a standard response in our society to complaints on a job poorly done. This response is a semantic error. Generally what a person means is: "I cannot be held legally liable." Yet, from a moral or ethical point of view, the person who disclaims responsibility is correct: by taking this way out he is truly not responsible; he is irresponsible.'''
 * I do not claim to have a magic answer. But I believe there are some basic principles of existence, propounded by thinkers through the ages, which can guide us toward the goal of finding a purpose in life.

 * The task of finding a purpose in life also calls for perseverance. I have seen many young men who rush out into the world with their messages, and when they find out how deaf the world is, they withdraw to wait and save their strength. They believe that after a while they will be able to get up on some little peak from which they can make themselves heard. Each thinks that in a few years he will have gained a standing, and then he can use his power for good. Finally the time comes, and with it a strange discovery: he has lost his horizon of thought. Without perseverance, ambition and a sense of responsibility have evaporated.

This principle of excellence is one which Americans seem to be losing, and at a time when the Nation stands in need of it. A lack of excellence implies mediocrity. And in a society that is willing to accept a standard of mediocrity, the opportunities for personal failure are boundless. Mediocrity can destroy us as surely as perils far more famous. It is important that we distinguish between what it means to fail at a task and what it means to be mediocre. There is all the difference in the world between the life lived with dignity and style which ends in failure, and one which achieves power and glory, yet is dull, unoriginal, unreflective, and mediocre. In a real sense, what matters is not so much whether we make a lot of money or hold a prestigious job; what matters is that we seek out others with knowledge and enthusiasm — that we become people who can enjoy our own company.
 * Happiness comes from the full use of one's power to achieve excellence. Life is potentially an empty hole, and there are few more satisfying ways of filling it than achieving and exercising excellence.

Ethics and morals are basically individual values. A society that does not possess an ethical dimension will find it almost impossible to draft a law to give it that dimension. Law merely deters some men from offending and punishes others from offending. It does not make men good. It is important also to recognize that morals and ethics are not relative; they do not depend on the situation. This may be the hardest principle to follow in working to achieve goals. The ends, no matter how worthy they appear, cannot justify just any means.
 * In our system of society, no authority exists to tell us what is good and desirable. We are each free to seek what we think is good in our own way. The danger is that where men compromise truth and let decency slip, they eventually end up with neither. A free society can survive only through men and women of integrity. Fortunately, there still exist human beings who remain concerned about moral and ethical values and justice toward others. These are the individuals who provide hope of the ultimate realism that is marked by a society's capacity to survive rather than be eventually destroyed.

A common thread moves through all the principles I have discussed: It is the desire to improve oneself and one's surroundings by actively participating in life. Too many succumb to the emotional preference of the comfortable solution instead of the difficult one. It is easy to do nothing. And to do nothing is also an act; an act of indifference or cowardice. A person must prepare himself intellectually and professionally and then use his powers to their fullest extent.
 * Life is not meaningless for the man who considers certain actions wrong simply because they are wrong, whether or not they violate the law. This kind of moral code gives a person a focus, a basis on which to conduct himself. Certainly there is a temptation to let go of morals in order to do the expedient thing. But there is also a tremendous power in standing by what is right. Principle and accomplishment need not be incompatible.

To find a purpose to life, on must be willing to act, to put excellence in one's work, and have concern for what is right ahead of personal safety. Life must be felt, not observed.
 * It is important to be both a thinker and a doer and to have sense of responsibility. A theoretician who has no responsibility is withdrawn from the real world. His recommendations are made in a vacuum. Because he is not required to carry them out, they may be irresponsible and do harm. Similarly, those in charge — the doers — are often devoid of any real thought.

 * I believe it is the duty of each of us to act as if the fate of the world depended on him. Admittedly, one man by himself cannot do the job. However, one man can make a difference. Each of us is obligated to bring his individual and independent capacities to bear upon a wide range of human concerns. It is with this conviction that we squarely confront our duty to prosperity. We must live for the future of the human race, and not of our own comfort or success.

And finally, the man who knows his purpose in life accepts praise humbly. He knows whatsoever talents he has were given him by the Lord and that these talents must be developed and used. In this way man renders thanks for the Lord's gift — and finds meaning in his life.
 * For anyone seeking meaning for his life a figure from Greek mythology comes to mind. It is that of Atlas, bearing with endless perseverance the weight of the heavens on his back. — Atlas, resolutely bearing his burden and accepting his responsibility that gives us the example we seek. To seek out and accept responsibility; to persevere; to be committed to excellence; to be creative and courageous; to be unrelenting in the pursuit of intellectual development; to maintain high standards of ethics and morality; and to bring these basic principles of existence to bear through active participation in life — these are some of my ideas on the goals which must be met to achieve meaning and purpose in life.

Exchange with Admiral Rickover (1982)

 * Responses to questions after his presentation of "Thoughts on Man's Purpose in Life", as published in "Exchange with Admiral Rickover", in Thoughts on Man's Purpose in Life, Second Annual Morgenthau Memorial Lecture, Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs (12 May 1982)

 * If history has any meaning for us, it shows that men will continue to use the best weapons they have to win. Throughout history, even when men have established leagues to prevent war, they have nevertheless resorted to it. Utopia is still beyond the horizon. Above all, we should bear in mind that our liberty is not an end in itself; it is a means to win respect for human dignity for all classes of our society.

 * I do not have regrets. I believe I helped preserve the peace for this country. Why should I regret that? What I accomplished was approved by Congress — which represents our people. All of you live in safety from domestic enemies because of security from the police. Likewise, you live in safety from foreign enemies because our military keeps them from attacking us. Nuclear technology was already under development in other countries. My assigned responsibility was to develop our nuclear navy. I managed to accomplish this.

The Rickover Effect (1992)

 * Quotations of Rickover from The Rickover Effect (1992) by Theodore Rockwell, ISBN 1-55750-702-3

 * It is said that a wise man who stands firm is a statesman, and a foolish man who stands firm is a catastrophe.

 * Nothing so sharpens the thought process as writing down one's arguments. Weaknesses overlooked in oral discussion become painfully obvious on the written page.

 * The Quakers have an excellent approach to thinking through difficult problems, where a number of intelligent and responsible people must work together. They meet as equals, and anyone who has an idea speaks up. There are no parliamentary procedures and no coercion from the Chair. They continue the discussion until unanimity is reached. I want you guys to do that. Get in a room with no phones and leave orders that you are not to be disturbed. And sit there until you can deal with each other as individuals, not as spokesmen for either organization.

 * You know the answer to that, don’t you. You don’t need me to tell you.

 * Any one detail, followed through to its source, will usually reveal the general state of readiness of the whole organization.

 * I believe it is the duty of each of us to act as if the fate of the world depended on him. Admittedly, one man by himself cannot do the job. However, one man can make a difference... We must live for the future of the human race, and not for our own comfort or success.

 * Nature is not as forgiving as Christ.

 * One must create the ability in his staff to generate clear, forceful arguments for opposing viewpoints as well as for their own. Open discussions and disagreements must be encouraged, so that all sides of an issue are fully explored.

 * In Greek mythology, Antaeus was a giant who was strong as long as he had contact with the earth. When he was lifted from the earth he lost strength. So it is with engineers. They must not become isolated from the real world...

 * The Devil is in the details, but so is salvation.

 * As a guide to engineering ethics, I should like to commend to you a liberal adaptation of the injunction contained in the oath of Hippocrates that the professional man do nothing that will harm his client. Since engineering is a profession which affects the material basis of everyone’s life, there is almost always an unconsulted third party involved in any contact between the engineer and those who employ him — and that is the country, the people as a whole. These, too, are the engineer’s clients, albeit involuntarily. Engineering ethics ought therefore to safeguard their interests most carefully. Knowing more about the public effects his work will have, the engineer ought to consider himself an “officer of the court” and keep the general interest always in mind.

 * The man in charge must concern himself with details. If he does not consider them important, neither will his subordinates. Yet “the devil is in the details.” It is hard and monotonous to pay attention to seemingly minor matters. In my work, I probably spend about ninety-nine percent of my time on what others may call petty details. Most managers would rather focus on lofty policy matters. But when the details are ignored, the project fails. No infusion of policy or lofty ideals can then correct the situation.

 * What it takes to do a job will not be learned from management courses. It is principally a matter of experience, the proper attitude, and common sense — none of which can be taught in a classroom... Human experience shows that people, not organizations or management systems, get things done.

 * It is a human inclination to hope things will work out, despite evidence or doubt to the contrary. A successful manager must resist this temptation. This is particularly hard if one has invested much time and energy on a project and thus has come to feel possessive about it. Although it is not easy to admit what a person once thought correct now appears to be wrong, one must discipline himself to face the facts objectively and make the necessary changes — regardless of the consequences to himself. The man in charge must personally set the example in this respect. He must be able, in effect, to "kill his own child" if necessary and must require his subordinates to do likewise.

 * When doing a job — any job — one must feel that he owns it, and act as though he will remain in that job forever. He must look after his work just as conscientiously, as though it were his own business and his own money. If he feels he is only a temporary custodian, or that the job is just a stepping stone to a higher position, his actions will not take into account the long-term interests of the organization. His lack of commitment to the present job will be perceived by those who work for him, and they, likewise, will tend not to care. Too many spend their entire working lives looking for the next job. When one feels he owns his present job and acts that way, he need have no concern about his next job.

 * To do a job effectively, one must set priorities. Too many people let their "in" basket set the priorities. On any given day, unimportant but interesting trivia pass through an office; one must not permit these to monopolize his time. The human tendency is to while away time with unimportant matters that do not require mental effort or energy. Since they can be easily resolved, they give a false sense of accomplishment. The manager must exert self-discipline to ensure that his energy is focused where it is truly needed.

 * One must permit his people the freedom to seek added work and greater responsibility. In my organization, there are no formal job descriptions or organization charts. Responsibilities are defined in a general way, so that people are not circumscribed. All are permitted to do as they think best and to go to anyone and anywhere for help. Each person is then limited only by his own ability.

 * As subordinates develop, work should be constantly added so that no one can finish his job. This serves as a prod and a challenge. It brings out their capabilities and frees the manager to assume added responsibilities. As members of the organization become capable of assuming new and more difficult duties, they develop pride in doing the job well. This attitude soon permeates the entire organization.

 * Responsibility is a unique concept... You may share it with others, but your portion is not diminished. You may delegate it, but it is still with you... If responsibility is rightfully yours, no evasion, or ignorance or passing the blame can shift the burden to someone else. Unless you can point your finger at the man who is responsible when something goes wrong, then you have never had anyone really responsible.

 * Rickover management objectives:
 * Require rising standards of adequacy.
 * Be technically self-sufficient.
 * Face facts.
 * Respect even small amounts of radiation.
 * Require adherence to the concept of total responsibility.
 * Develop the capacity to learn from experience.

 * Administration is, or ought to be, a necessary overhead to aid production, and should at all times be kept as low as possible.

 * They all have excellent resumes... So what I’m trying to find out is how they will behave under pressure. Will they lie, or bluff, or panic, or wilt? Or will they continue to function with some modicum of competence and integrity?
 * Discussing his style of interviewing all officers who entered the Naval Reactors program.

 * Everything new endangers something old. A new machine replaces human hands; a new source of power threatens old businesses; a new trade route wipes out the supremacy of old ports and brings prosperity to new ones. This is the price that must be paid for progress and it is worth it.

Misattributed

 * Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.
 * Though Rickover quoted this, he did not claim to be the author of the statement. Using it in "The World of the Uneducated" in The Saturday Evening Post (28 November 1959), he prefaces it with "As the unknown sage puts it..." — It has sometimes been attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, but without definite citation.
 * Some evidence for Henry Buckle (1821-1862) as the source: see p.33 quotation

 * You have to learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make them all yourself.
 * Variations of this quote have been attributed to a number of people, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Samuel Levenson, and Lao Tzu; there is no solid support for any such attribution.

Quotes about Rickover

 *  Why not the best?
 * This was the title of a book by Jimmy Carter sometimes misattributed as a quotation of Rickover; though the title was inspired by a job interview Carter had with Rickover, this phrasing was not used by Rickover himself:
 * I had applied for nuclear submarine program, and Admiral Rickover was interviewing me for the job... Finally he asked me a question and I thought I could redeem myself. He said, "How did you stand in your class at the Naval Academy?" ... I swelled my chest with pride and answered, "Sir, I stood 59th in a class of 820!" I sat back to wait for the congratulations — which never came. Instead the question: "Did you do your best?" I started to say, "Yes, sir," but I remembered who this was... I finally gulped and said, "No sir, I didn't always do my best." He looked at me for a long time, and then turned his chair around to end the interview. He asked one final question, which I have never been able to forget — or to answer. He said, "Why not?"
 * Jimmy Carter Why Not the Best? (1975) ISBN 0553101986

 * I don't mean to suggest... that he is a man who is without controversy. He speaks his mind. Sometimes he has rivals who disagree with him; sometimes they are right, and he is the first to admit that sometimes he might be wrong. But the greatness of the American military service, and particularly the greatness of the Navy, is symbolized in this ceremony today, because this man, who is controversial, this man, who comes up with unorthodox ideas, did not become submerged by the bureaucracy, because once genius is submerged by bureaucracy, a nation is doomed to mediocrity.
 * Richard Nixon, in a ceremony awarding Rickover his rank as Four-star Admiral (3 December 1973)

title: Hyman G. Rickover