There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

The only way to do great work is to love what you do.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I say unto you: you still have chaos in you.

Of all that is written, I love only what a person hath written with his blood. Write with blood, and thou wilt find that blood is spirit.

The creator seeks companions, not corpses, nor herds and believers. The creator seeks fellow creators.

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

Art is the proper task of life.

The voice of beauty speaks softly: it steals only into the most awakened souls.

Life is a musical thing, and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played.

There is no contradiction between spontaneous freedom and disciplined skill; they are the two sides of the same coin.

When you listen to music, you don't listen to get to the end of the song. The point of the song is the dancing.

In music, one does not make the end of a composition the point of the composition. If that were so, the best conductors would be those who played the quickest.

Nothing is more creative than death, since it is the secret of life: it means that the past must always make way for the future.

Silence is the great canvas on which the music of existence is painted.

He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing.

You are the ears through which the universe listens to its own harmony.

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect, but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity.

If you have nothing at all to create, then perhaps you create yourself.

To give birth to the ancient in a new time is creation.

The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.

Through the creation of mandalas, the soul heals itself and restores its inner balance.

As a plant produces its flower, so the psyche creates its symbols. Every dream is evidence of this process.

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

To write well, express yourself like common people, but think like a wise man.

Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude, through pity and fear effecting the catharsis of such emotions.

The secret to humor is surprise.

Fill the brain with high thoughts, highest ideals, place them day and night before you, and out of that will come great work.

You have to dream before your dreams can come true, and you must act to make them real.

I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument while the song I came to sing remains unsung.

Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.

Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.

The flute must be empty for the breath of the singer to create sweet music.

True art is the soul's celebration of existence.

The master craftsman loves the tool, but honors the stone.

You must not let your life run in the ordinary groove; do something that nobody else has done, something that will dazzle the world with the power of God in you.

I would rather die of passion than of boredom.

Every day is a fresh canvas for your soul's artistry.

If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

Purity of intent turns ordinary labor into sacred art.

What is done in love is done well.

There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.

Inspiration is a slender river of light flowing from the boundless ocean above.

I dream my painting and I paint my dream.

Beauty is the signature of the divine in the material world.

Normality is a paved road: It's comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

Action is the foundational key to all success.

The truth of tomorrow is born in the courageous thoughts of today.

Stillness is the mother of all creative power.

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

The greatest art is the art of conscious living.

Everything you can imagine is real.

Let your spirit dance with the joy of cosmic freedom.

Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.

Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.

Let love be the sole motive of all your creative labors.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Learning never exhausts the mind.

Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.

Tears come from the heart and not from the brain.

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

You can never be overdressed or overeducated.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.

No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.

Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.

Arrange whatever pieces come your way.

Creativity takes courage.

There are always flowers for those who want to see them.

A bird does not sing because it has a question; it sings because it has a song.

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.

A drop of pure ink from a righteous pen can make a million minds contemplate eternity.

A good story told with love heals the sick in spirit and guides the lost back to the council fire.

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.

A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.

Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.

Creativity is the greatest rebellion in existence.

To be creative means to be in love with life.

A bird does not sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.

Writing is the geometry of the soul.

Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity.

Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.

Dance until you shatter yourself.

Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.

Only from the heart can you touch the sky.

Respond to every call that excites your spirit.

I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think.

Inside you there's an artist you don't know about.

We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust.

All day and night, music, a quiet, bright reed-song. If it fades, we fade.

Knock on the sky and listen to the sound.

I am a sculptor, a molder of form. In every glance I create an image of you, and then I cast it into the fire.

The wound is the place where the light enters you.

What you seek is seeking you.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

You cannot find peace by avoiding life.

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.