Eric Maisel Quotes

86 Sourced Quotes

Hurray for criticism, if it means that an artist's voice is heard. Let the wise artist invite criticism and survive it when it comes.

Eric Maisel
To obsess too virulently is to walk alone in anxiety. But to obsess too little is to wall oneself off from one's own creativity.

Eric Maisel
I am one powerful self made up of so many selves that sometimes I throw myself a get-acquainted party.

Eric Maisel
Boredom is the thing that regularly arrives between excitements and episodes of meaning: it is as natural as the tides, and in it an artist can drown.

Eric Maisel
Affirmations need to be used if they are to become incorporated into the fabric of your being.

Eric Maisel
The three elements of creativity are thus: loving, knowing, and doing - or heart, mind, and hands - or, as Zen Buddhist teaching has it; great faith, great question, and great courage.

Eric Maisel
Do I doubt the painting I've just painted because it is not right or because I can never like what I do?

Eric Maisel
We can carve time out of thin air, or we can fill up even infinite stretches of time with nothingness. These are our choices.

Eric Maisel
While it may feel natural to devote yourself to your creative work and succumb to feelings of separation and alienation, it nevertheless isn't a terrific idea in terms of your overall happiness and health.

Eric Maisel
A long, deep breath is the equivalent of a full stop and the key to centering.

Eric Maisel
The strange, unbeautiful face beautiful in its ugliness; the perfect, beautiful face ugly in its perfection.

Eric Maisel
The more sophisticated we become - as we pierce reality and see the void beyond - the more our sense of wonder is destroyed, along with our reasons for being.

Eric Maisel
Chaos is everywhere - and artists, to fashion art and live truthfully, have no choice but to invite this unwanted guest right into the studio.

Eric Maisel
Before you can make meaning, an odd kind of election process must occur. You must nominate yourself as the meaning-maker in your life and as the hero of your own story. Then you must consciously elect yourself to that position.

Eric Maisel
An alive piece of art may be more alive than much of its audience, and with this odd truth artists must make peace.

Eric Maisel
There are an infinite number of rewards you could bestow on yourself for working at your creative projects, and you deserve every one of them.

Eric Maisel
Affirmations are not bound up in rules. An affirmation can be long or short, poetic or plain. If you love a phrase and find that it helps you, that is a valid affirmation.

Eric Maisel
You can sweat by not practicing or you can pick up your clarinet. There's good sweat and there's bad sweat.

Eric Maisel
You and you alone are the sole arbiter of the meaning in your life. The second you turn to someone and say, What does life mean? or, What should my life mean? you have slipped into a mind-set that courts inauthenticity and depression. The second you agree with someone simply because of her position or reputation, whether that someone is a guru, author, cleric, parent, politician, general, or elder, you fall from the path of personal meaning-maker.

Eric Maisel
If we had the consciousness of a cat or a dog, we would have it in us to become perfect Zen masters. We could gnaw on a bone, take a nap, play with a spider until we killed it, get our litter just right, and be innocently and serenely present. Meaning would mean nothing to us, nor would we need it to mean anything. We would be free, and we would be spared. But, we are human beings, and we posses that odd duck – human consciousness.

Eric Maisel
An artist must struggle to accept the shape of this universe - and achieve some important successes...

Eric Maisel
Abstraction is itself an abstract word and has no single meaning... Every word in our language is abstract, because it represents something else.

Eric Maisel
An artist feels vulnerable to begin with; and yet the only answer is to recklessly discard more armour.

Eric Maisel
The artist's personality, built upon strong desires and compassionate vision, is by its nature prone to depression.

Eric Maisel
The middle way cannot be achieved by dividing two extremes in half.

Eric Maisel
The writer loves the fog as it pours in; he loves the sun when the fog pours out. The rest of California is Beach Boys country, but San Francisco has that moody thing going on, those blues notes wrapped in moisture, an atmosphere that tempers California dreaming and makes life more real. The fog brings reality, but it is still a California reality, one spent outdoors the whole year round.

Eric Maisel
We are on the threshold of understanding a shining idea: that each individual's life can have meaning, even if the universe has none.

Eric Maisel
Life is too short not to create, not to love, and not to lend a helping hand to our brothers and sisters.

Eric Maisel
This individual is regularly nominated not only by himself but by others as well: by the ordinary townsfolk who beg him to save their town, their world, or their galaxy because they see that he has the strength and integrity that they lack.

Eric Maisel
Your chances of creating deeply hinge on the quality of your awareness state.

Eric Maisel