Provoking Thought Quotes

Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.

Art does not exist only to entertain, but also to challenge one to think, to provoke, even to disturb, in a constant search for truth.

I think a writer's job is to provoke questions. I like to think that if someone's read a book of mine, they've had - I don't know what - the literary equivalent of a shower. Something that would start them thinking in a slightly different way, perhaps. That's what I think writers are for.

A great philosophy is not one that passes final judgments and establishes ultimate truth. It is one that causes uneasiness and starts commotion.

To be misunderstood can be the writer's punishment for having disturbed the reader's peace. The greater the disturbance, the greater the possibility of misunderstanding.

The purpose of making people feel uncomfortable is to play with their preconceptions.

If you are not offending people who ought to be offended, you're doing something wrong.

It is always much easier, I have discovered, to make people cry or gasp than to make them think.

I think the job of artists is to stir things up.

I like any reaction I can get with my music. Just anything to get people to think.

I think “The Book of Mormon” has made that difference in its field. It changed the game. It’s something that 20 years from now people will still be talking about, hopefully. That’s my goal as an artist, as a creator, as a work for hire, is to choose projects that make people think, make people talk, and make people interested in having a dialogue.

If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read it?

I've always done music to push people to get them to get uncomfortable in their seat so they could wrestle with things. Not to become pew potatoes, just simply sitting there, growing fat with knowledge and not applying it. It's a mixed tape that's really aimed and geared toward hip hop culture.

Real art has the capacity to make us nervous.

IN CINEMA IT IS NECESSARY NOT TO EXPLAIN, BUT TO ACT UPON THE VIEWER'S FEELINGS, AND THE EMOTION WHICH IS AWOKEN IS WHAT PROVOKES THOUGHT.

I think that when a film does its job, it poses questions rather than gives answers. It should act as a frustrating counselor who, at your bidding for advice, says, 'What do you think?' I think that's some of what the culture critic Greg Tate meant by art leaving a 'metaphysical stain.'

I try to write catchy hooks but, at the same time, things that mean something that will provoke thought.

I've always done music to push people to get them to get uncomfortable in their seat so they could wrestle with things. Not to become pew potatoes, just simply sitting there, growing fat with knowledge and not applying it.

But there is more to a fine photograph than information. We are also seeking to present an image that arouses the curiosity of the viewer or that, best of all, provokes the viewer to think-to ask a question or simply to gaze in thoughtful wonder. We know that photographs inform people. We also know that photographs move people. The photograph that does both is the one we want to see and make. It is the kind of picture that makes you want to pick up your own camera again and go to work.

The task of the artist is to make the human being uncomfortable.

I look for interesting titles that are curious and make people think. A lot of people are always so caught up in their lives. But if I make them smile through my titles or provoke them a little bit then maybe they will think about things and read the book and take something away from it.

I deal with certain things in my work because of who I am. I make work in order to make people think.

I think the nature of songwriters is that they are philosophers, and philosophers have a bent towards poetry and songwriting, so I think that the two run around together. The nature of a songwriter could be philosophical. Looking for universal ideas, a way to say things, get the story across as a means of entertaining, provoking thought.

Perhaps it is of more value to infuriate philosophers than to go along with them.

Artists are here to disturb the peace.