John Cage Short Quotes

25 Sourced Quotes

View all John Cage Quotes
It was by means of words we became subservient.

John Cage
A finished work is exactly that, requires resurrection.

John Cage
As far as consistency of thought goes, I prefer inconsistency.

John Cage
There is poetry as soon as we realize that we possess nothing.

John Cage
Each something is a celebration of the nothing that supports it.

John Cage
You can feel an emotion; just don't think that it's so important.

John Cage
Music is edifying, for from time to time it sets the soul in operation.

John Cage
The material of music is sound and silence. Integrating these is composing.

John Cage
I have nothing to say/ and I am saying it/ and that is poetry/ as I need it.

John Cage
All God's religions... have not been able to put mankind back together again.

John Cage
A 'mistake' is beside the point, for once anything happens it authentically is.

John Cage
Art's purpose is to sober and quiet the mind so that it is in accord with what happens.

John Cage
An error is simply a failure to adjust immediately from a preconception to an actuality.

John Cage
Value judgments are destructive to our proper business, which is curiosity and awareness.

John Cage
I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.

John Cage
Our business in living is to become fluent with the life we are living, and art can help this.

John Cage
Whether I make them or not, there are always sounds to be heard and all of them are excellent.

John Cage
We are involved in a life that passes understanding, and our highest business is our daily life.

John Cage
I remember loving sound before I ever took a music lesson. And so we make our lives by what we love.

John Cage
Now that we have everything we need, we discover that there is almost nothing that we have that we want

John Cage
It is not irritating to be where one is. It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else.

John Cage
Why do you not do as I do? Letting go of your thoughts as though they were the cold ashes of a long dead fire?

John Cage
Combine nursing homes with nursery schools. Bring very old and very young together: they interest one another.

John Cage
Theatre takes place all the time - wherever one is - and art simply facilitates persuading one this is the case.

John Cage
The highest purpose is to have no purpose at all. This puts one in accord with nature, in her manner of operation.

John Cage
The responsibility of the artist consists in perfecting his work so that it may become attractively disinteresting.

John Cage
The grand thing about the human mind is that it can turn its own tables and see meaninglessness as ultimate meaning.

John Cage
Until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about the future of music.

John Cage
Let no one imagine that in owning a recording he has the music. The very practice of music is a celebration that we own nothing.

John Cage
I am trying to check my habits of seeing, to counter them for the sake of greater freshness. I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I'm doing.

John Cage