I never view aesthetic ideas as having an existence purely of their own but as a function they have in connection with political or moral values.

Art should startle the viewer into thinking about the meaning of life.

The artist has to make the viewer understand that his world is too narrow, he has to open up to new perspectives.

When I talk of reality, I am always thinking of essentials. Profundity is not located in some remote, inaccessible region. It is rooted in everyday life.

They were wrestling with canvases, using violent colors and huge brush strokes. I arrived with gray, silent, sober, oppressed paintings. One critic said they were paintings that thought.

The highest wisdom adopts the humblest of bodies.

I am interested in study, reflection, philosophy - but always as a dilettante. I also consider myself a dilettante as a painter.

Painting quickly is a calculated act to block out rational thought.

A cross could be a shape for expressing something spacious; such as the coordinators of space. That could be called its first significance or its first relevance.

The tattoo can only exist as part of the skin, as a drawing always is an incision in the material and therefore cannot be parted from it.

My illusion is to have something to transmit. If I can't change the world, at least I want to change the way people look at it.

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.

Criticism is properly the rod of divination: a hazel switch for the discovery of buried treasure, not a birch twig for the castigation of offenders.

You sometimes have to join forces with those you'd rather avoid.

I think it's ridiculous to try to sell records to teenagers, because teenagers don't buy my records. And there ain't that many teenagers out there in the marketplace.

Modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.

Don't be distracted by doubters.

Whilst the Bihar calamity damages the body, the calamity brought about by untouchability corrodes the very soul.

I turned off my Google alerts in 2009 as I learnt that following yourself on the Internet very quickly becomes unhealthy.

I can assure all Americans that the best decision is going to be made based on all of the information presented to the president.

Every person is responsible for all the good within the scope of his abilities, and for no more, and none can tell whose sphere is the largest.