Joseph Beuys Quotes

I want to write music that will outlive me.

That's all a man can hope for during his lifetime - to set an example - and when he is dead, to be an inspiration for history.

The way you 'take history' is also a way of 'making history.'

I'm glad I was part of history, here long after I'm gone.

You can't rewrite the history books; you can't eliminate the impact of my work and my characters.

The main thing is, you just want to have your place in history. You hope that people will look back on it in 15, 20, 30 and beyond years, and say, "That was an exciting film."

If any of my plays outlive me or get on library book shelves and somehow stay read, all of a sudden it's a testament to "that's part of our culture, that's part of our history."

I think people in the future will come up to me and say, "Everything that you are and everything that you have is because of that butler [film]." Of course, that's Oprah's line from the movie, but I think it will resonate with my legacy with the movie.

Dying is for fools. I'm proud of what I created. I exposed people to magic. I exposed people to things they would never see in their normal lives.

I am a part of history whether people want to take it seriously or not.

I want to be remembered as an artist who was really passionate about his work. And as an inspiration. I do what I do to inspire people.

You wanna be remembered for making an impact and changing things. I guess for the good or for the bad, it don't matter. But I guess you just wanna be remembered when it's all said and done.

When the legacy you leave behind lasts for hours, days or a lifetime, you matter.

I always wanted to be historical, from almost a baby on, I felt that way about it.

I just want my music to measure up to. Part of it's just thinking about my place in history and how this music is going to be perceived, if it's listened to 30, 40 years from now.

I could care less about ever having a No. 1 single. I would just like to be able to play and have people who grow old with you, and you stay with them through their life. We've got a few sentences, maybe, to say what life's about. Hopefully, we'll get a chapter later.

No artist knows in his own lifetime whether what he does will be the slightest good, because it takes at least seventy-five to a hundred years before the thing begins to sort itself out.

The hero is known for achievements; the celebrity for well-knowns. The hero reveals the possibilities of human nature. The celebrity reveals the possibilities of the press and media. Celebrities are people who make news, but heroes are people who make history. Time makes heroes but dissolves celebrities.

I want to be one of those people, be they writers, poets, musicians, who leaves clues for the next generation. The really good people leave clues that help feed the human race. That's my aspiration.

More important than a work of art itself is what it will sow. Art can die, a painting can disappear. What counts is the seed.

They say that art should stand the test of time. Life lasts a limited amount of time. Mountains and trees and earth will outlive human beings, but we don't know if they will be here always. Art does outlast the life span of its maker. Art should communicate to an increasing circle of strangers-people who do not know the artist, but come to know the work, and through the work, come to know something about the humanity of the artist that rings with their own humanity.

I just want people to remember me a hundred years from now. I don't care that they're not able to quote any single line that I've written. But just that they can say, "Oh, he was a writer." That's sufficiently an honored position for me.

I am not taking away the historical legacy, but it should not become a burden.

What we end up calling history is a kind of knife, slicing down through time. A few people are hard enough to bend its edge. But most won't even stand close to the blade. I'm one of those. We don't bend anything.

I'm not a painter who's saying, "I want people to see my work when I die; it will be this and that." That's not satisfying to me.