Quotes from Eli Siegel

There is not one thing that music does which does not say something about how a person should organize himself, too.

When truth is divided, errors multiply.

If a mistake is not a stepping stone, it is a mistake.

We want people to represent us in politics—and in love and economics too. When people represent us fully, they are ourselves and are not ourselves. When an object is simultaneously the same as and different from the person concerned with it—or considering it—aesthetics is there.

The most important thing in industry is the person who does the industry, which is the worker…. Labor is the only source of wealth. There is no other source, except land, the raw material….Every bit of capital that exists was made by labor, just as everything that is consumed is.

The self can watch itself becoming lazy, or non-watchful; this is an asset that can make both for humor and profound well-being.

When truth is divided, errors multiply.

Every work of art is about everything.

The resolution of conflict in self is like the making one of opposites in art.

The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites.

In reality opposites are one; art shows this.

Originality in art puts charm where it wasn't.

Art can make the old surprising, and the new and sudden soothing.

All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.

We should see the desire for neatness, the desire for sharp impressions, as a desire in art.