#merely

Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest. ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#art #conquest #imitation #merely #metaphysical

I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later. ↗

— Ezra Pound

#come #consider #created #criticism #excitement

Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself. ↗

— Marcel Proust

#discern #every #finds #himself #instrument

These groups within a society can he distinguished according as to whether, like an army or an orchestra, they function as a single body; or whether they are united merely to defend their common interests and otherwise function as separate individuals. ↗

— Herbert Read

#army #body #common #common interests #defend

If the individual is a unit in a corporate mass, his life is not merely brutish and short, but dull and mechanical. ↗

— Herbert Read

#corporate #dull #his #individual #life

The assumption is that the right kind of society is an organic being not merely analogous to an organic being, but actually a living structure with appetites and digestions, instincts and passions, intelligence and reason. ↗

— Herbert Read

#analogous #appetites #assumption #being #digestions

Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing. ↗

— Ralph Richardson

#art #coughing #group #keeping #large

My honour was not yielded, but conquered merely. ↗

— Cleopatra

#honour #merely #yielded

A 'new thinker', when studied closely, is merely a man who does not know what other people have thought. ↗

— Frank Moore Colby

#does #know #man #merely #new

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. ↗

— William James

#many #merely #people #prejudices #rearranging