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A story of artists on Amazon

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A story of artists from the Paleolithic to this morning

Carl William Brown — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 20:28:53 +0000

A story of artists

A story of artists from the Paleolithic to this morning. A great book by an artist on the real essence of the art work, reviewed by Carl William Brown. Whereas much has been written on the subject of art, the literature on the figure of the artist has been relatively scant. There are certainly countless biographies as well as essays dedicated to particular aspects of art – for example, the relationship between artists and their patrons – but there is no comprehensive text that puts together the pieces of the puzzle showing how the figure of the artist changed over the millennia. An Artist’s Story of Artists by Andros, translated from Italian by Elizabeth Enrica Thomson, is an attempt to make good this lacuna by retracing the long and often fragmented path of the artist, from the Palaeolithic until this morning, more or less.

If life weren’t so terrible, art wouldn’t exist.
Andros

Art is a colossal fraud; I can’t live with it, but I can’t live without it.
Andros

Art never dies, but artists, fortunately, do.
Andros

The formula for art: the square root of imagination, more pain, less life.
Andros

Everything is the stuff of art, and art is all the stuff.
Andros

The sleep of art generates exhibitions.
Andros

The book A story of artists – From the Paleolithic to This Morning by Andros is a monumental work, with a very clear and ambitious structure: it recounts the evolution of the artist (not art itself) from prehistoric origins to the contemporary era, dividing the journey into five major phases: 1. Shaman and decorator – the artist as a magical-sacred figure. 2. Worker and executor – the long period of the artist-servant. 3. Mirror, intellectual, and genius – the Renaissance and the birth of the “genius.” 4. Experimenter and theoretician – from the nineteenth century to the avant-garde. 5. Experiential and inflated – postmodernism and the artist as a brand.

The introduction is a lucid and unconventional treatise on the philosophy of art: Andros challenges the “evaluative” criteria that claim to define who is or is not an artist based on the quality of their work, and instead adopts a “non-evaluative” and “humanistic” approach: an artist is someone who dedicates himself passionately and consistently to an art, like a doctor dedicates himself to healing or a priest to his faith. The book is also a sociological reflection: it shows how the figure of the artist has been continually distorted by ideologies, power, the market, and ultimately by the very inflation of the term “artist” in the contemporary era.

There’s a sentence in the introduction that resonates today like a bitter yet true echo: “The artist is someone who dedicates himself to an art, even if he does it poorly.” This simplicity captures the full meaning of his thought: art is not a privilege, it is a burning vocation, an act of absolute dedication. And those who dedicate themselves to it know they pay a price: that of incomprehension, misinterpretation, sometimes even contempt. Indeed, the sacred fire of art warms some people and burns many others.

In an age when the word “artist” has almost become a marketing label, Andros’ book, A story of artists – From the Paleolithic to This Morning, comes as a breath of fresh air (and a bit of truth). Published in 2014 but more relevant than ever, this is a surprising essay in its breadth, clarity, and passion: it doesn’t tell the history of art, but the story of the artist, of those who make art, with their hands, their minds, and their lives. So we can certainly say that for those who love art, for those who practice it, or simply for those who still wonder what it means to be an artist, this book is an enlightening, ironic, and necessary read.

The author fills a glaring gap in art literature: while countless pages have been dedicated to works and movements, very few have followed the thread of the man (and woman) behind the work, its social, philosophical, and even biological transformations. From the first shaman who painted for magic and survival, to the artist-brand of the digital age, Andros reconstructs a millennia-long journey in five major phases, where the figure of the artist changes shape and status along with civilization. In these pages, Andros doesn’t simply tell the story of artists: he recounts the struggle of being artists, the tension between the need to express oneself and the world’s indifference, the constant struggle to give form to something that cannot be expressed.

With a brilliant and ironic style, the author combines the rigor of the historian with the eye of the practitioner, because, as he confesses, he writes “on the side of the artists.” This text doesn’t hide behind academic language: it questions dogmas and definitions, starting with that of “art” itself. The underlying thesis is as simple as it is liberating: an artist is not someone judged to be “good,” but someone who dedicates themselves authentically and consistently to an art.

This “non-evaluative” approach shifts the discussion from aesthetic value to human value: Andros restores the artist’s dignity as a worker, thinker, experimenter, and, often, a victim of social convention. He does so with a cultured yet lively style that intertwines philosophy, anthropology, psychology, and history in a narrative that is always fluid and full of curiosity, from the mysteries of the Altamira caves to the paradoxes of contemporary art.

A story of artists is, ultimately, a book about the meaning of creation and resistance. It recounts how, over the millennia, the artist has gone from shaman to slave, then genius, then cursed, to the “banned” artist of today, overwhelmed by the market and cultural mediocrity. But beneath every disguise, the same urgency remains: that of shaping the world and ourselves.

The book, dense and rigorous but never burdensome, traverses millennia of human evolution with clear language, rich in curiosities, quotations, and philosophical reflections. From the figure of the Paleolithic shaman to the postmodern artist, Andros reconstructs the entire journey of being an artist as a long metamorphosis, marked by five major phases that correspond to anthropological, social, and spiritual changes.

His writing has a dual strength: on the one hand, it is well-documented, timely, grounded in accurate readings and references; on the other, it is animated by a personal, engaging, and sometimes ironic tone, revealing the perspective of someone who doesn’t observe art from the outside, but lives it every day. Indeed, Andros openly declares that he writes “on the side of artists,” and this intellectual honesty is one of the book’s greatest strengths.

At times, the author becomes merciless, both toward critics and artists themselves, demonstrating how the figure of the artist has shifted, over the centuries, from sacred to ridiculed, from spiritual elevation to contemporary banalization. But the tone remains constructive: there is no sterile bitterness, but rather a desire to restore dignity to a fragile and extraordinary human condition.

Andros labor is evident on every page: it is the result of years of study, direct observation, and personal reflection. The work manages to be simultaneously a historical essay, an intellectual diary, and a confession. For this reason, A story of artists is not just a book about art, but a book about the identity and human destiny of those who create.

It’s rare to encounter a text capable of combining expertise, passion, and vision with such balance. And even rarer to find one that invites the reader to question not what art is, but who, and why, stubbornly continues to make it. It’s a book that doesn’t console, but enlightens. And it leaves its reader with a question that never fades: how long can the creative human being endure in a world that no longer seems to need creators?

Reading “A story of artists – From the Paleolithic to This Morning” today, knowing that its author, Andros, is no longer with us, is an experience that profoundly changes the book’s meaning. What appears to be a great historical essay on the evolution of the artist across the millennia also becomes the moral and spiritual testament of a man who made art not a profession, but a destiny. Yet, leafing through the pages, one has the feeling of listening to an interrupted dialogue: Andros does not only speak of artists of the past, but speaks to us, to the artists of today, to readers, to anyone who still seeks meaning in the word “dedicate oneself”.

This text is a journey as long as humanity itself, but it is also a confession: the confession of a man who looked into the word “art” and found within it life, madness, hope, and defeat. The author wanted to restore dignity to the artist, not as a genius or a privileged individual, but as a human being who dedicates himself totally to his work. Ultimately, the Artist’s Story is also the story of the struggle of existence. The book clearly highlights the compassion of those who know the solitude of creation, the joy and pain of those who dirty their hands with color and life. Knowing that Andros is no longer with us adds a shadow to his book that is not only sad, but also truthful. His voice joins that of the many artists he has portrayed—the misunderstood, the disillusioned, the rebels, the dreamers—and seems to say: “We were here, and we tried to understand.”

The Artist’s Story thus remains as a legacy, a testament of thought and passion. It’s a book that speaks to artists, but also to those who aren’t, because deep down, we’ve all felt like you at least once in our lives: caught between the urge to create and the burden of not being understood. Perhaps this is the true legacy of his work: reminding us that art is not a luxury, but a means of resistance. And that those who live it to the fullest don’t truly die, but continue to speak to us, with the same silent voice that will try to resonate in every mind of good will that will touch this miserable planet.

On this subject you can also read:

Quotes and aphorisms on music

The post A story of artists from the Paleolithic to this morning first appeared on The World of English.

Thoughts and reflections on music

Carl William Brown — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 13:34:48 +0000

Thoughts and reflections on music

Thoughts and reflections on music, an article with great analysis by famous authors and musicians on the deep inner value and importance of music for our lives.

Perhaps all music, even the newest, is not so much something discovered as something that re-emerges from where it lay buried in the memory, inaudible as a melody cut in a disc of flesh. A composer lets me hear a song that has always been shut up silent within me.
Jean Genet

Mozart has the classic purity of light and the blue ocean; Beethoven the romantic grandeur which belongs to the storms of air and sea, and while the soul of Mozart seems to dwell on the ethereal peaks of Olympus, that of Beethoven climbs shuddering the storm-beaten sides of a Sinai. Blessed be they both! Each represents a moment of the ideal life, each does us good. Our love is due to both.
Henri Frederic Amiel

When Mozart was composing at the end of the eighteenth century, the city of Vienna was so quiet that fire alarms could be given verbally, by a shouting watchman mounted on top of St. Stefan’s Cathedral. In twentieth-century society, the noise level is such that it keeps knocking our bodies out of tune and out of their natural rhythms. This ever-increasing assault of sound upon our ears, minds, and bodies adds to the stress load of civilized beings trying to live in a highly complex environment.
Steven Halpern

Music and dancing (the more the pity) have become so closely associated with ideas of riot and debauchery among the less cultivated classes, that a taste for them, for their own sakes, can hardly be said to exist, and before they can be recommended as innocent or safe amusements, a very great change of ideas must take place.
Sir John Herschel

Now, to curry favor with the younger generations, the Pope has decided, among other things, to become the megaphone of rock stars and starlets, once the devil’s music. And so even the old rebel Bob Dylan will play for the pontiff, not for free, of course, but only for the modest sum of five hundred thousand euros.
Carl William Brown

Reflections and thoughts on music

Since music is a language with some meaning at least for the immense majority of mankind, although only a tiny minority of people are capable of formulating a meaning in it, and since it is the only language with the contradictory attributes of being at once intelligible and untranslatable, the musical creator is a being comparable to the gods, and music itself the supreme mystery of the science of man, a mystery that all the various disciplines come up against and which holds the key to their progress.
Claude Levi-Strauss

The musical emotion springs precisely from the fact that at each moment the composer withholds or adds more or less than the listener anticipates on the basis of a pattern that he thinks he can guess, but that he is incapable of wholly divining. If the composer withholds more than we anticipate, we experience a delicious falling sensation; we feel we have been torn from a stable point on the musical ladder and thrust into the void. When the composer withholds less, the opposite occurs: he forces us to perform gymnastic exercises more skilful than our own.
Claude Levi-Strauss

A friend of mine, when he heard I was writing a book about stupidity, said to me, “You know, to increase your productivity, you should listen to music.” I asked him what kind of music, and smiling he confidently replied, “A little bit of everything is more than fine.”
Carl William Brown

We fight our way through the massed and leveled collective safe taste of the Top 40, just looking for a little something we can call our own. But when we find it and jam the radio to hear it again it isn’t just ours — it is a link to thousands of others who are sharing it with us. As a matter of a single song this might mean very little; as culture, as a way of life, you can’t beat it.
Greil Marcus

The author’s conviction on this day of New Year is that music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance; that poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music; but this must not be taken as implying that all good music is dance music or all poetry lyric. Bach and Mozart are never too far from physical movement.
Ezra Pound

The new sound-sphere is global. It ripples at great speed across languages, ideologies, frontiers and races. The economics of this musical Esperanto is staggering. Rock and pop breed concentric worlds of fashion, setting and lifestyle. Popular music has brought with it sociologies of private and public manner, of group solidarity. The politics of Eden come loud.
George Steiner

Personally, I just think rap music is the best thing out there, period. If you look at my deck in my car radio, you’re always going to find a hip-hop tape; that’s all I buy, that’s all I live, that’s all I listen to, that’s all I love.
Eminem

September 1998. Lucio Battisti dies, a great poet who, through his songs, even managed to give a certain dignity to banality. He was a musical beacon for many generations, and even Carl William Brown paid him a great tribute in the distant 1980s by purchasing a compilation of Battisti’s greatest hits, made in Naples, from a Moroccan in a bar in Brescia.
Carl William Brown

Best reflections on music

Music has charms to sooth a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.
William Congreve

The conductor begins to move from where the composer, the genius, left off. The most important thing is to serve the music, and serve it with love. An “act of love,” very close to an act of faith, one might say. The conductor as servant. However, at the moment of performance, the situation changes. “At that moment, the composition belongs to me. You have to be deeply convinced that this is the only way to interpret it, that this is the truth.” Because, in turn, the performance then represents who you are as a person. I have to be fully involved, feeling that that work belongs to me, to my life, heart, and body, as much as to my mind.”
Carlo Maria Giulini

The servant of genius is himself a genius artist. The most important thing is to serve the music, and serve it with love. An “act of love” that interpret life as art, and art as life, and you can’t deny that Kriss Drummer is an extremely lively girl.
Carl William Brown

I think its so cool that you can pick up the guitar and create something that didn’t exist 5 minutes ago. You can write something that no ones ever heard before. You have music at your fingertips.
Michelle Branch

There have existed, and still exist, despite the disruptions that civilization brings, small, delightful peoples who learned music with the simplicity with which one learns to breathe. Their conservatory is: the eternal rhythm of the sea, the wind in the leaves, and a thousand small noises attentively perceived, without ever resorting to arbitrary treatises.
Claude Debussy

The advice I am giving always to all my students is above all to study the music profoundly… music is like the ocean, and the instruments are little or bigger islands, very beautiful for the flowers and trees.
Andres Segovia

There can be no musical instrument that does not mix pure sound, which consists only of the vibrations of the air, with an extraneous addition, due to the vibrations of the material from which it is made. These vibrations, by their impulse, cause those of the air and produce a minimal accessory sound, so that each sound receives its specific character: thus, for example, what distinguishes the sound of the violin from that of the flute. But the less this accessory mixture, the purer the sound: this is why the human voice has the purest sound, since there is no artificial instrument that can equal the natural instrument.
Arthur Schopenhauer

It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting beauty of monotony.
Benjamin Britten

I asked my daughter when she was 16, What’s the buzz on the street with the kids? She’s going, to be honest, Dad, most of my friends aren’t into Kiss. But they’ve all been told that it’s the greatest show on Earth.
Ace Frehley

It is essential to do everything possible to attract young people to opera so they can see that it is not some antiquated art form but a repository of the most glorious music and drama that man has created.
Bruce Beresford

Times were changing. Clothes were changing. Morals were changing. We went from romantic loves songs like I used to do to rock ‘n roll. Now that has changed to rap. So, there’s always a new generation with new music.
Bobby Vinton

He who cannot rely on any music within himself, and cannot be moved by the harmonious harmony of sweetly modulated sounds, is ready for treachery, deceit, and robbery: the motions of his soul are dark as night, and his affections as dark as Erebus. Let no one ever trust such a man.
William Shakespeare

Famous reflections on music

Close friends contribute to our personal growth. They also contribute to our personal pleasure, making the music sound sweeter, the wine taste richer, the laughter ring louder because they are there.
Judith Viorst

The works of all truly capable minds are distinguished from others by their characteristic of decisiveness and determination, along with the qualities that derive from them, namely perspicuity and clarity, because such minds always knew precisely and clearly what they wanted to express – whether in prose, verse, or musical notes.
Arthur Schopenhauer

I have never watched a whole concert in my life, nor a musician playing for more than ten minutes without getting bored, what’s more I have never liked heavy metal music or estremely hard rock, but with Kriss Drummer is different, she is extremely magnetic and charismatic. Someone told me to let Kriss be my gateway drug, but as an old metaphorical witchdoctor I must admit that I only used dangerous substances when I was much younger.
Carl William Brown

What does it mean to have musical feeling? You don’t have it if you play your piece from beginning to end with great difficulty, anxiously staring at the written notes, or if you stop abruptly in your performance, completely unable to continue, if someone accidentally turns two pages at once. But you undoubtedly possess this musical feeling if, while playing a piece that is completely new to you, you roughly guess what follows, or know it by heart if the piece is already known to you; in a word, if you have music not only in your fingers, but also in your head and heart.
Robert Schumann

The essence of music is to awaken in us that mysterious foundation (inexpressible by literature and in general by all finite modes of expression, which use either words and consequently ideas, specific things, or specific objects – painting, sculpture) of our soul, which begins where the finite and all the arts that have the finite as their object stop, where science stops, and which can therefore be called religious.
Marcel Proust

The ear, the organ of fear, could only develop as richly in the night and semi-darkness of dark forests and caves as it did, according to the way of life of the age of fear, that is, the longest human age ever. During the day, the ear is less necessary. Hence the character of music, as an art of the night and semi-darkness.
Friedrich Nietzsche

This book is nothing more than a pilgrim’s journey to the sanctuary of stupidity. He’s not in good company, so he listens to the advice of the wise men of the past and a bit of rebellious, melancholic music. The pitfalls are many, but he isn’t afraid; he’s not a worshipper, much less a flatterer; on the contrary, he’s a destroyer.
Carl William Brown

It is through music that the West reveals its true nature and reaches its depths. If the West has not created a wisdom or a metaphysics entirely its own, nor even a poetry that can be said to be unparalleled, it has, however, projected into its musical productions all its original force, its subtlety, its mystery, and its capacity for the ineffable.
Emil Cioran

The thing that makes music beautiful is that you never reach perfection. So every night I ask myself: how am I going to approach that song? How can I make the most of it? Sometimes something goes wrong so you have to try again. One day you discover something new, a new feeling. It’s beautiful.
Ziggy Marley

If one could give a perfectly exact, complete, and detailed explanation of music – that is, if one could reproduce in concepts point by point what it expresses – one would certainly also have an adequate conceptual reproduction and explanation of the world […], that is, true philosophy.
A. Schopenhauer

Pop music is a lullaby. After all, look how young people sway when they listen to it: they lull themselves to sleep […] Think of those young people who prepare for exams to the sound of rock ‘n’ roll: their parents think the radio is keeping them from studying, and they take it away; the kids then become truly incapable of studying. They can complete that work as adults only if they aren’t deprived of the childhood gratifications they need.
B. Bettelheim

A melody is a set of successive sounds of varying pitch, each having a relationship such that their overall perception is capable of satisfying both the intellect and the senses. This linear, horizontal aspect of music contrasts with the vertical aspect of sets of simultaneous individual sounds, or chords, whose formation and concatenation constitute harmony.
G. Ferchault

Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit – Drum Cover by Kristina Rybalchenko

Music is the most romantic of all the arts; its theme is the infinite, it is the mysterious Sanskrit of nature expressed in sounds, which fills the human heart with infinite desire, for only in it can one hear the sublime song of trees, flowers, animals, stones, and water!
Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann

Whether melody comes first and implies harmony, or whether melody is a horizontal development of harmony, is the subject of a centuries-old dispute. It has no answer, nor is it worth seeking. Harmony and melody interact and, in the Western musical tradition, are inseparable.
R.F. Goldman

Mozart has the classical purity of light and the blue ocean; Beethoven the romantic grandeur that belongs to the storms of air and sea, and while Mozart’s soul seems to dwell on the ethereal peaks of Olympus, Beethoven’s trembling climbs the stormy slopes of Sinai. Blessed be they both! Each represents a moment in the ideal life, each does us good. Our love is due to both.
Henri Frederic Amiel

When Mozart composed in the late 18th century, the city of Vienna was so quiet that fire alarms could be sounded verbally, by a screaming guard atop St. Stephen’s Cathedral. In 20th-century society, the noise level is so high that it constantly slams our bodies and disrupts their natural rhythms. This increasingly intense sonic assault on our ears, minds, and bodies increases the stress load of civilized beings trying to live in a highly complex environment.
Steven Halpern

Music and dancing (which is a pity) have become so closely associated with ideas of riot and debauchery among the less educated classes that it can scarcely be said that a taste for them, for their own sake, exists, and before they can be recommended as innocent or safe amusements, a profound change of ideas must occur.
Sir John Herschel

Since music is a language endowed with meaning at least for the vast majority of humanity, although only a small minority are capable of formulating meaning in it, and since it is the only language with the contradictory attributes of being simultaneously intelligible and untranslatable, the musical creator is a being comparable to the gods, and music itself is the supreme mystery of human science, a mystery with which all the various disciplines collide and which holds the key to their progress.
Claude Lévi-Strauss

Musical emotion arises precisely from the fact that at any given moment the composer retains or adds more or less than the listener expects, based on a pattern he thinks he can intuit but is incapable of fully grasping. If the composer retains more than we expect, we experience a delightful sensation of falling; we feel torn from a stable point on the musical scale and thrust into the void. When the composer retains less, the opposite happens: he forces us to perform gymnastic exercises more skillfully than our own.
Claude Lévi-Strauss

We make our way through the collective, massed, and leveled taste of Top 40, searching for just a little something we can call our own. But when we find it and listen to it again, it’s not just ours: it’s a connection to thousands of others who share it with us. As a single song, this might mean very little; as a culture, as a way of life, it’s unbeatable.
Greil Marcus

The author’s belief, on this New Year’s Day, is that music begins to atrophy when it strays too far from dance; that poetry begins to atrophy when it strays too far from music; but this should not be interpreted to imply that all good music is dance music or all poetry is lyrical. Bach and Mozart are never too far from physical movement.
Ezra Pound

The new soundscape is global. It spreads at great speed across languages, ideologies, borders, and races. The economics of this musical Esperanto is astonishing. Rock and pop generate concentric worlds of fashion, setting, and lifestyle. Popular music has brought with it sociologies of private and public modes, of group solidarity. The politics of Eden resonates strongly.
George Steiner

Perhaps all music, even the most recent, is not so much something discovered as something that resurfaces from where it lay buried in memory, imperceptible like a melody engraved on a disc of flesh. A composer lets me hear a song that has always been locked away silently within me.
Jean Genet

Nor is it surprising that the ear delights in diverse sounds, since the sight delights in the variety of colors, the sense of smell delights in the variety of odors, and the tongue delights in the variety of flavors. Thus, through the window of the body, the sweetness of pleasurable sensations miraculously penetrates to the depths of the heart.
Guido of Arezzo

The natural and general effect of music on us comes not from harmony but from sound, which electrifies and shocks us at first touch, even when it’s monotonous. This is what makes music special above the other arts.
Giacomo Leopardi

A piece of jazz is always different every time you play it: it should never be composed, rather, it is composed in the moment you play it. It’s no coincidence that the word jazz comes from New Orleans brothel slang; it’s a term related to sex, and sex, as we know, is the pinnacle of creativity and improvisation; always different, never the same.
M. Aaron

Lucio Battisti - Fiori rosa, fiori di pesco (Official Audio)

Lucio Battisti - Acqua azzurra, acqua chiara (Official Audio)

Orietta Berti-Fin Che La Barca Va

Works in which the genius of the intellect shines forth do not appear alive and beautiful unless they are performed in a manner that is also alive and beautiful, warm and delicate, faithful, grandiose, brilliant, and animated. The excellence of a performance depends not only on the choice of performers but on the spirit that animates them.
H. Berlioz

Teaching is a peaceful method that seeks to study and implement the best way to disseminate knowledge in general. It applies to all disciplines and involves and entails the analysis of all aspects of human life: scientific, emotional, social, technical, cultural, economic, artistic, recreational, literary, musical, and so on. Teaching is therefore an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary applied philosophy that aims to improve human existence in the universe.
Carl William Brown

The error begins when one draws the false conclusion that the laws, since they are apparently true for phenomena observed up to that point, must henceforth also be valid for all future phenomena. This is the most disastrous result: one believes one has found a norm for determining the artistic value of future works as well.
A. Schönberg

It is chained to commercial music, if only by its predominant source material, dance music. To complete the picture, we must add the amateurish inability to account for musical phenomena with precise musical concepts, an inability that vainly seeks to justify itself by invoking the difficulty of accurately capturing the secret of jazz’s irregularities, since the notation of serious music has long taught us to capture incomparably more subtle oscillations on paper.
Th. W. Adorno

The term ‘atonal’ came to collectively designate music that was not only claimed to lack a harmonic center (tonality in Rameau’s sense) but also music equally devoid of musical attributes such as melody, rhythm, partial or general form; so much so that ‘atonal’ today indicates music that is not music at all. […] In fact, in atonal music […] all the other characteristics expected of true and authentic music are present. […] As in all other music, in this music too, the melody, the lead voice, the theme, are fundamental since the development of the music, in a certain sense, is determined by them.
A. Berg

Instinctive listening doesn’t exist for me: music is an artificial phenomenon, the product of highly complex cultural factors, for which, at the moment of listening, a personal historical vision and a natural habituation to this or that style come into play, even if at an unconscious level. Instinctive listening, I would say sensorial, is possible only for a child, free and without taboos.
L. Berio

Little by little, a mysterious emotion took hold of me, tearing down all my internal defenses, the dams of a different culture, the worn-out trenches of my older generation. I felt that, little by little, as the fiery afternoon advanced toward evening, the concert was taking shape and establishing itself in its barbaric and powerful ritual form, slowly and relentlessly ascending toward catharsis.
R. De Monticelli

In Mediterranean civilizations […] making the lyre vibrate means making the world vibrate: the cosmic wedding is fulfilled, the earth is fertilized by the sky, it rains on the fields, and women’s hips grow heavy. All musical instruments seem to have been so many means to access the secret harmony of the world.
J. Servier

Melody and harmony should be merely tools in the artist’s hands to create music, and if a day comes when there is no longer any talk of melody or harmony or German or Italian schools, or of the past or the future, etc., etc., then perhaps the reign of art will begin.
Giuseppe Verdi

I don’t know how to write poetically: I’m not a poet. I don’t know how to arrange sentences so artfully that they cast shadow and light: I’m not a painter. I don’t even know how to express my feelings and thoughts with gestures and pantomime: I’m not a dancer. But I can do it with sounds: I’m a musician.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Musical notation is extremely mysterious. It’s made up of small signs we call “notes,” but the note, as long as it remains only on paper, is dead… this note begins to live the moment it becomes sound… and this is only the physical part, after all. Equally mysterious is the fact that the conductor is the only musician who doesn’t play an instrument and the only one who can produce a sound without any physical contact with the instrument. So how is the sound produced? “There’s no explanation.”
Carlo Maria Giulini

Music shouldn’t be taken seriously, or maybe it should, but only up to a certain point. You can take your job, your family, your politics seriously. When you want to escape from all that shit, you do it by listening to music. You don’t want to listen to sad songs, you need to have fun. That’s the spirit in which Green Day makes music.
Billie Joe Armstrong

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William Shakespeare’s literary reputation!

The post Thoughts and reflections on music first appeared on The World of English.

Shakespeare aphoristic wisdom

Carl William Brown — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 10:18:07 +0000

Aphoristic wisdom

Shakespeare aphoristic wisdom a short essay from William Shakespeare Aphoristic Dictionary a great book by Carl William Brown of 600 pages, 8 essays, more than 3,000 quotes, 200 quotations by great authors through the centuries on Shakespeare and much more.

Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile; filths savour but themselves.
William Shakespeare

I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am.
Francis Bacon

Wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man regards it.
William Shakespeare

It is not enough to love wisdom, knowledge or learning, you also have to make others fall in love.
Carl William Brown

Meditation on wisdom is always praiseworthy, regardless of the results.
Seneca

Passions make man live, wisdom only makes him live longer.
Nicolas de Chamfort

Why, but scholars should have some privilege of pre-eminence. So have they: they only are worthy translators.
John Florio

Love is a sickness full of woes, All remedies refusing; A plant that with most cutting grows, Most barren with best using.
Samuel Daniel

A good life is a main argument, but a good book is a miracle.
Ben Jonson

Man is a Creature of a wilful Head, And hardly driven is, but eas’ly led.
Samuel Daniel

Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them… I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive as those fabulous dragon’s teeth and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men.
John Milton

To the reader, we offer this collection as both a mirror of human nature and a guide to noble living. Let these aphorisms, stamped with Shakespeare’s acute genius, store the mind with precepts that fortify the heart against folly and inspire actions that reflect divine wisdom and goodness.

In an age craving clarity amidst confusion, Shakespeare’s aphorisms – simple, profound, and true – remain an inexhaustible source of instruction, urging us toward benevolence, piety, and the pursuit of a higher moral order. The works of William Shakespeare, a poet and dramatist without equal, have long served as a treasury of human wisdom, illuminating the complexities of the heart and the principles that govern virtuous conduct. Within the rich tapestry of his plays and sonnets lie pearls of insight-brief, pointed, and profound-worthy of being gathered and presented for the contemplation of all who seek to refine their understanding and elevate their character.

The dramatic genius of William Shakespeare, unmatched in its poetic splendor, shines most brightly in its embodiment of good sense, moral wisdom, and a vivid perception of the duties and affections that govern human life. If these qualities form the soul of great dramatic writing, none has certainly surpassed Shakespeare, whose works overflow with truths that illuminate the path to virtue and prudence. As Horace, adapted to Shakespeare, declares: “Good sense and moral wisdom are the source / Whence the true drama gains its purest force.”

This collection therefore, gathers the poet’s most concise and weighty sayings-maxims drawn from the mouths of kings, fools, lovers or soldiers-that distill the moral and prudential essence of his plays and sonnets into propositions of enduring truth, crafted to instruct, elevate, and inspire readers of every age, since they transcend the context of their dramatic origins to speak universally to the human condition.

They teach us to discern virtue from vice, to navigate the tempests of passion with reason, and to uphold integrity amidst the frailties of life. For instance, when Polonius advises, “This above all: to thine own self be true,” we are reminded of the paramount duty of self-honesty, a cornerstone of moral rectitude. Likewise, the poignant reflection, “All the world’s a stage,” invites us to consider the transient roles we play and the eternal values that should guide our actions.

The aphoristic form, dignified by antiquity, finds its zenith in Shakespeare. From the maxims of Pythagoras to the precepts of Euripides, Seneca, and Plautus, and from the Psalms and Proverbs to the sayings of Confucius and Zoroaster, this mode has long conveyed moral instruction through maxims that encapsulate practical wisdom, and timeless lessons for the betterment of the soul and society.

Modern masters like Bacon, Milton, Montesquieu or Pascal have employed this literary genre to convey wisdom with force and brevity, yet Shakespeare, rivaling the best of Greek and Roman antiquity, surpasses them in vividness and universality. His aphorisms, as Quintilian advocated for moral verses, are fit to be memorized by youth, fortifying the heart against human mental instability, making his aphorisms a beacon for personal and civic virtue.

Shakespeare’s aphorisms, like those of the ancients, are the fruit of a mind deeply attuned to the human condition. Drawing from his modest yet sufficient learning-Latin, some Greek, French, and Italian, alongside the chronicles of his country and the Scriptures-and enriched by converse with wise contemporaries such as Jonson, Essex, and Southampton, Shakespeare wove his observations into sayings that breathe with the grace of truth.

As a matter of fact his aphorisms reflect the duties owed to country, friends, parents, and kin; the sanctity of wedded love; and the roles of speare. From the maxims of Pythagoras to the precepts of Euripides, Seneca, and Plautus, and from the Psalms and Proverbs to the sayings of Confucius and Zoroaster, this mode has long conveyed moral instruction through maxims that encapsulate practical wisdom, and timeless lessons for the betterment of the soul and society.

As a matter of fact his aphorisms reflect the duties owed to country, friends, parents, and kin; the sanctity of wedded love; and the roles of judges, senators, and warriors. They teach us to navigate the complexities of life with a kind of intellectual and pragmatic integrity of mind. That’s why we insist once again that the inner goal of this volume is not merely to adorn the mind with eloquent phrases but to furnish it with precepts for virtuous living.

Each aphorism, in its original form, has been carefully selected for its didactic power, offering guidance to the young, consolation to the weary, and admonition to the wayward. In an age where madness often masquerades as wisdom, Shakespeare’s maxims serve as beacons, illuminating the path to prudence, justice, and compassion. They are not abstract philosophies but practical counsels, forged in the crucible of human experience and polished by the poet’s art.

From Shakespeare Aphoristic Dictionary a book of 600 pages by Carl William Brown. It includes 8 essays, 562 entry words, more than 3,000 quotes and 200 value judgments by great authors and scholars to fully appreciate the real greatness of the most famous literary genius of all time.

William Shakespeare great quotes

The Greatness of William Shakespeare

Thoughts and literary quotes on Shakespeare

Aforismi geniali di William Shakespeare by C.W. Brown

English, Greek and Latin, the revival of learning

The English Renaissance, a golden age

Great inspirational quotes and aphorisms

The post Shakespeare aphoristic wisdom first appeared on The World of English.

100 splendid quotes

Carl William Brown — Mon, 26 May 2025 12:04:25 +0000

100 splendid quotes

100 splendid quotes, a selection of 100 great aphorisms by famous authors, philosophers and artists through the centuries to help everyone create better thoughts and achieve good actions; edited for the World of English blog by Carl William Brown, a sincere literary avenger. (Find out more about him on Amazon).

Awareness and stupidity are unfortunately two sides of the same coin, just like life and death, laughter and tears, comedy and tragedy, wealth and poverty, peace and war; but with these coins it is very difficult, if not impossible, to play heads or tails and tempt fate.
Carl William Brown

Excellence withers without an adversary.
Seneca

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.
William Shakespeare

Love is a state in which a man sees things most decidedly as they are not.
Friedrich Nietzsche

The contradiction of capitalism is that it creates wealth while increasing poverty.
Karl Marx

I hate victims that respect their executioners.
Jean Paul Sartre

Focus on knowledge, live authentically, challenge limits, and align your soul with truth.
Socrates

The misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool.
Epicurus

A snake can change its skin but not its disposition.
Persian proverb

Stupidity generally serves both those who do not think much and those who think too much and badly.
Carl William Brown

The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God’s name is Abraxas.”
Hermann Hesse

No man is good by chance. Virtue is something which must be learned.
Seneca

When your education limit your imagination, it is called indoctrination.
Richard Feynman

We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged.
Heinrich Heine

Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present: each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.
William James

Excellence is achieved through repeated effort, guided by reason and effort.
Aristotle

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury; signifying nothing.
William Shakespeare

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.
Mark Twain

Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom.
Marie von Ebner

The quickest way to end a war is to loose it.
George Orwell

The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.
Rumi

The wise don’t need advice. Fools won’t take it.
Benjamin Franklin

If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation.
Epictetus

A person hears only what he understand or better what he believe to understand.
Carl William Brown

Good and ethic power should be the ability to do good for othes, otherwise power in itself is just only stupidity.
Carl William Brown

If you want to reach a large audience, appeal to idiots.
Arthur Schopenhauer

There is no greater good than knowledge.
Plato

Even a writer of aphorisms, if he does not know the philosophical secret of the right measure, will only contribute to the miserable prolixity of stupidity.
Carl William Brown

The highest for of love is the love of wisdom.
Plato

Those who tell the stories also rule society.
Plato

Have patience. All things are difficult before they become easy.
Sadi of Shiraz

One must never miss an opportunity of quoting things by others which are always more interesting than those one thinks up oneself.
Marcel Proust

The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. Power is what all messiahs really seek: not the chance to serve. This is true even of the pious brethren who carry the gospel to foreign parts.
H.L. Mencken

The community should share property and family to create unity.
Plato

Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.
Otto von Bismarck

Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.
Winston Churchill

The brighter the light, the darker the shadow.
Carl G. Jung

It is to difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.
jean Jacques Rousseau

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.
Voltaire

The body is the prison of the soul.
Plato

Love is silence, and it has no past or future.
Jiddu Krishnamurti

It is frightful that people who are so ignorant have so much influence.
George Orwell

In a war of Ego, the loser always wins.
Buddha

Make a habit of two things – to help, or at least, to do no harm.
Hippocrates

As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot.
John Lennon

Knowledge is the food of the soul.
Plato

Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ten beggars can sleep on one rug, but two kings feel uncomfortable in one country.
Saadi

An intellectual is a person who has found a thing that is more interesting than sex.
Aldous Huxley

We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged.
Heinrich Heine

Happiness is not achieved by pursuing pleasure but by embracing purpose.
Epictetus

Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.
Benjamin Franklin

Let your actions align with your words.
Epictetus

What I advice you to do is not to be unhappy before the crisis comes.
Seneca

The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.
Marcus Aurelius

Better a civil or a world war, even a nuclear one, than having to put up with the stupidity of those who govern this planet, the shithole toilet of the universe.
Carl William Brown

The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
John Milton

The mind can make a heaven of hell, or a hell of heaven.
Marcus Aurelius

Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it.
René Descartes

The purpose of education is to empower individuals to think critically.
John Locke

For the world is Hell, and men are on the one hand the tormented souls and on the other the devils in it.
Arthur Schopenhauer

How can great minds be produced in a country where the test of a great mind is agreeing in the opinions of small minds?
John Stuart Mill

Wickedness is paid for in the next world, but stupidity in this one.
Arthur Schopenhauer

I have never believed that man’s freedom consisted in doing what he wants, but rather in never doing what he does not want to do.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
Confucius

A concept is a brick. It can be used to build a courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window.
Gilles Deleuze

Not to be absolutely certain is one of the essential things in rationality.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Philosophy is the art of forming, inventing, and fabricating concepts that respond to problems.
Gilles Deleuze

Chi pensa non crede, chi crede non pensa.
Arthur Shopenhauer

Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.
Vicktor Frankl

The essence of evil is its refusal to think.
Hannah Arendt

To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.
Plutarch

True philosophy begins where pleasure ends and discipline begins.
Plato

A corrupt state teaches its youth obedicence, not virtue.
Lucis Annaeus Seneca

I swear to you, gentlemen, that being too conscious is a disease, a real, absolute disease.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

I swear to you, gentlemen, that being too conscious is a disease, a real, absolute disease.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

I would prefer an intelligent hell to a stupid paradise.
Blaise Pascal

Once upon a time, watching some American films, we said that our people were coming, today at most we can only say that the idiots are coming.
Carl William Brown

The common people are always seduced by appearance and success.
Niccolò Macchiavelli

To accuse others for one’s own misfortune is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.
Epictetus

The superior man always thinks of virtue, the common man thinks of comfort.
Confucius

A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.
George Bernard Shaw

The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have.
Epictetus

Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.
Aldous Huxley

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.
Epictetus

Books weigh a lot: and yet, those who feed on them and put them in their bodies, live among the clouds.
Luigi Pirandello

A lie is more comfortable than doubt, more useful than love, more lasting than truth.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Often injustice lies in what you aren’t doing, not only in what you are doing.
Marcus Aurelius

Since the little wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery that wise men have makes a great show.
William Shakespeare

Nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first understood.
Leonardo da Vinci

Humanity does not need artificial intelligence if imbecility still dominates deep within its nature.
Carl William Brown

Slept, awoke, slept, awoke, miserable life.
Franz Kafka

All war is a crime against humanity.
Leo Tolstoy

Happy slaves are the bitterest enemies of freedom.
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

It is better to change an opinion than to persist in a wrong one.
Socrates

The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.
Bertrand Russell

By all means marry: if you get a good wife or husband, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad wife or husband, you’ll become a philosopher.
Socrates

If you wish to be rich, do not add to your money, but subtruct from your desires.
Epicurus

The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.
Arthur Schopenhauer

To know what life is worth you have to risk it once in a while.
Jean-Paul Sartre

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The post 100 splendid quotes first appeared on The World of English.

Shakespeare Aphoristic Dictionary

Carl William Brown — Wed, 07 May 2025 13:19:04 +0000

William Shakespeare Aphoristic dictionary

Shakespeare Aphoristic Dictionary is a book of 600 pages. It includes 8 essays, 562 entry words, more than 3,000 quotes and 200 value judgments by great authors and scholars to fully appreciate the real greatness of the most famous literary genius of all time.

What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty!
William Shakespeare

Since Shakespeare had a like for revolutionary rhetoric, let’s all cry: “Peace, freedom, and kindness.” So now we can start the play!
Carl William Brown

And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, and then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; and thereby hangs a tale.
William Shakespeare

If you really want to change something, you have to start by changing yourself, going against yourself to the very end. The greatest civil commitment is self-contestation.
Carmelo Bene

The lunatic, the lover and the poet are of imagination all compact and they have such shaping fantasies that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends.
William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare Aphoristic Dictionary is a great book of 600 pages. It includes 8 essays, with hundreds of quotes, a rich preface to explain Shakespeare, his work, his talent and his time; 200 opinions and value judgments on Shakespeare by great authors and scholars; 562 entry words with more than 3,000 aphorisms; 90 famous texts and soliloquies of Shakespeare, extrapolated from the entire corpus of the Bard and a detailed commented biography.

As a matter of fact we have, a dedication, a preface, an introduction, the following essays; aphoristic wisdom, Shakespeare time, Shakespeare greatness, Shakespeare reputation, English Renaissance, Shakespeare identity, Shakespeare sources; then we have the Aphoristic dictionary and Shakespeare famous texts, a conclusion text, plus the bibliography, the list of entry words and the Index of contents.

All this to reiterate and help spreading, in a period of poor predisposition to reading, the importance of aphoristic literature and the fundamental thoughts of classical culture, both from a philosophical and psychological point of view, and from an aesthetic and sociological one.

In this “Aphoristic dictionary”, all the best aphorisms of the great playwright magically follow one another as if the author himself were compiling a real rhetorical glossary for his own use and consumption, to underline as always the literary, historical, linguistic and scientific importance of the aphoristic expression. I believe this is an elegant and direct approach because it will allow the aphorisms to speak for themselves, much like a pure collection of wisdom. The dictionary format will also make it easy for readers to explore specific themes at a glance.

I have voluntarily chosen to leave the quotes without any comment or reference to the works, precisely because the value of the aphorisms, as linguistic expressions in themselves, without the citation of the source of the work or the character, express the true essence of the language and communication, and contain the true message that one wants to communicate, beyond the name of the author or the other who wrote them, after all what is in a name, a rose would not be such, if only it were called by another term.

Let’s take for example the aphorism “War kills more cuckolds than peace breeds men.” Certainly, if we consider that it is Timon who expresses it in a certain context of the drama, we could also say that it is not the true thought of Shakespeare, or of whoever wrote or reworked the text for him, but if we analyze it without any reference to the work from which it was extrapolated, we have the distillation of the profound idea expressed by the phrase, which could be the thought of more than one character or author, it is a general idea that does not allow itself to be imprisoned by the surroundings and travels freely in the minds of more people.

This collection therefore, gathers the poet’s most concise and weighty sayings-maxims drawn from the mouths of kings, fools, actors, lovers or soldiers that distill the moral and prudential essence of his plays and sonnets into propositions of enduring truth, crafted to instruct, elevate, and inspire readers of every age, since they transcend the context of their dramatic origins to speak universally to the human condition.

What to say today about Shakespeare and his relevance, if not for example to quote Matthew Arnold who states: “The dialogue of the mind with itself has begun; modern problems have presented themselves; we already hear the doubts, we see the discouragement of Hamlet and Faust.” and thus realize that the work of this great genius is timeless, immortal, and best represents the restlessness, ambiguity and unhappiness of modern man in all its nuances, and just as in his sonnets good mixes with evil, beauty with deformity, desire with repulsion, passion with shame.

More than 400 years after his death, the cult of our universal bard shows no signs of fading. Indeed, Shakespeare is now a brand, an industry, “Shakespeare Inc.” as Time called it, titling the cover “Will Power.” Everything is sold in his name: from T-shirts to mugs, from mouse pads to corkscrews. Not to mention Shakespearean tourism, which brings in significant revenue to the coffers of the United Kingdom. The new Globe in London, modeled on “his” seventeenth-century theater, is always sold out. “But this global market does not in the least affect his greatness, does not diminish the ever-new charm, the magic – we would say with Prospero in The Tempest – that the words of his texts evoke, a true universe of words.”

To conclude this brief description I want to say, paraphrasing Martin Amis, that while we write, or read, someone watches over us: the mother, the teacher, Shakespeare, God.

William Shakespeare great quotes

The Greatness of William Shakespeare

Thoughts and literary quotes on Shakespeare

Aforismi geniali di William Shakespeare by C.W. Brown

English, Greek and Latin, the revival of learning

The English Renaissance, a golden age