Donald Knuth Quotes

After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved science and art tend to coalesce in aesthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest scientists are artists as well.

To the engineer, all matter in the universe can be placed into one of two categories: (1) things that need to be fixed, and (2) things that will need to be fixed after you've had a few minutes to play with them. Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.

From music and dance to painting and sculpting, the arts allow us to explore new worlds and to view life from another perspective. They also encourage individuals to sharpen their skills and to nurture their imagination and intellect.

To be creative, a person has to internalize the entire system that makes creativity possible. Creative individuals are remarkable for their ability to adapt to almost any situation and to make do with whatever is at hand to reach their goals.

Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art, you must master the craft.

From the point of view of art, there are no concrete or abstract forms, but only forms which are more or less convincing lies.

Genius is, to be sure, not a matter of arbitrariness, but rather of freedom, just as wit, love, and faith, which once shall become arts and disciplines. We should demand genius from everybody, without, however, expecting it.

I don't really believe in the mystery of cinematography - what happens in the camera is what the cinematographers create and all that nonsense.

Seizing new ground, making connections between people or ideas, working without a map-these are works of art, and if you do them, you are an artist, regardless of whether you wear a smock, use a computer, or work with others all day long.

Art is craft, not inspiration.

A work of art is not a matter of thinking beautiful thoughts or experiencing tender emotions , but of intelligence, skill, taste, proportion, knowledge, discipline and industry; especially discipline.

Only through art can we get outside of ourselves and know another's view of the universe which is not the same as ours and see landscapes which otherwise would remain unknown to us like the landscapes of the moon. Thanks to art, instead of seeing a single world, our own, we see it multiply until we have before us as many worlds as there are original artists.

Picasso obviously viewed his art as a business, which it was. I view my business as an art, which it is.

I like the idea that people get engaged thinking about design, about creativity. I don't see how it could possibly be bad.

Industry is best at the intersection of science and art.

Picturing things, taking a view, is what makes us human; art is making sense and giving shape to that sense. It is like the religious search for God.

I couldn't portray a women in all her natural loveliness.. I haven't the skill. No one has. I must, therefore, create a new sort of beauty, the beauty that appears to me in terms of volume of line, of mass, of weight, and through that beauty interpret my subjective impression. Nature is mere a pretext for decorative composition, plus sentiment. It suggests emotion, and I translate that emotion into art. I want to express the absolute, not merely the factitious woman.

I don't think you necessarily have to be the most perfected performer, in order to express your feelings. It's really those feelings that an audience connects with, I think, at least as much as perfected technical skill.

No work of art ever puts forward views. Views belong to people who are not artists.

I was meticulously copying other art and then I realized I could just use a camera and put my time into an idea instead.

Programming is a skill best acquired by practice and example rather than from books.

Hunger is the teacher of the arts and the bestower of invention. -Magister artis ingenique largitor Venter

I'm not "filled with my art". I ain't got no art. I've got only a kind of craftsman's skill, and make stories as I make biscuits or embroider underwear or wrap up packages.

The painter makes real to others his innermost feelings about all that he cares for. A secret becomes known to everyone who views the picture through the intensity with which it is felt.

Is creativity some obscure, esoteric art form? Not on your life. It's the most practical thing a business-man can employ.