Quotes About Mastery

A work is perfectly finished only when nothing can be added to it and nothing taken away.

it takes almost a lifetime to learn how to do a thing simply.

Cameron, Gilliam, Jackson, Fincher, Kubrick, Lucas, Spielberg, Del Toro, Tarantino. And, of course, Kevin Smith.

It's none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.

The lazy flesh disappeared. Our muscles became hard as steel, refined on the anvil of an experienced blacksmith. Even our faces changed. Among other things, we learned to ride, to fence, to take a fall. And these we learned for life.

Der Bildhauer steht zunächst dem rohen Block, der puren Materie gegenüber, die jede Möglichkeit umschließt. Sie antworten dem Meißel; er kann zerstören oder Wasser des Lebens geistige Macht aus ihr befreien.

Translators are like ninjas. If you notice them, they're no good.

After all, this is what learning is: as we learn a task, we get better at it, be it tennis, geometry, or a foreign language.

Learning is the engine of practice, and practice is the history of that learning.

The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing.

Artists who seek perfection in everything achieve it in nothing (14 March 1858)

Far from wishing to awaken the artist in the pupil prematurely, the teacher considers it his first task to make him a skilled artisan with sovereign control of his craft.

You worry yourself unnecessarily," the Master comforted me. "Put the thought of hitting right out of your mind! You can be a Master even if every shot does not hit. The hits on the target are only the outward proof and confirmation of your purposelessness at its highest, of your egolessness, your self-abandonment, or whatever you like to call this state. There are different grades of mastery, and only when you have made the last grade will you be sure of not missing the goal.

Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.

Wisdom is the art of living skillfully in whatever actual conditions we find ourselves.

This is practice. And practice is all I want out of art.

Whenever a tool is handled with ease and with a minimum of false motions, so that it will produce accurate and satisfactory results, it is handled in the right way. The constant aim of every carpenter, especially the apprentice, should be to eliminate false motions in everything he does." — Carpenter's Tools, H. H. Seigele

We are all master procrastinators, you don't have to keep practicing it.

I'm becoming a more complete player. I have more shots. I can rely more on my putting, rely on my short game.

What gives Messi an extra dimension is that he always remains calm. Whatever happens, nothing affects him and the way he plays. He is a star, the best in the world and he shows it year after year.

Picasso, Michelangelo, possibly, might be verging on genius, but I don't think a painter like Rembrandt is a genius.

In common with Michelangelo and Rembrandt I am more interested in the line, its rise and fall, than in color.

I don't think there's an illustrator who's as good as a Titian or a Rembrandt... but then, Rembrandt was a bit of an illustrator on the quiet, you know?

I didn't watch 'The A-Team' movie. I'm an artist. You can't re-paint a Rembrandt. You can't duplicate that; I don't care who you get.