Clement Greenberg Kitsch Quotes

#1. I'm all for skinny jeans, a flowing blouse, patterned flats and chunky jewels.

Sydney Wayser

#2. The peasant finds no "natural" urgency within himself that will drive him toward Picasso in spite of all difficulties. In the end the peasant will go back to kitsch when he feels like looking at pictures, for he can enjoy kitsch without effort

Clement Greenberg

#3. The world is full of stupid people. That's why we have rules. But with enough intelligence, a person can be above the rules. She can make rules.

Daniel Nayeri

#4. Where Picasso paints cause, Repin paints effect. Repin predigests art for the spectator and provides a short cut to the pleasure of art that is necessarily difficult in genuine art. Repin, or kitsch, is synthetic art.

Clement Greenberg

#5. I was not a natural beauty, and I always wanted to be pretty. I just have such an outgoing personality that it's fitting that I would be overdone.

Dolly Parton

#6. Idiosyncratic belief systems which are shared by only a few adherents are likely to be regarded as delusional. Belief systems which may be just as irrational but which are shared by millions are called world religions.

Anthony Storr

#7. I grew up as a tomboy, so I'm used to being around guys.

Jennifer Bini Taylor

#8. The burden of living one's own life is experiencing sensations that no one else can share.

David Ignatow

#9. The main trouble with avant-garde art and literature, from the point of view of fascists and Stalinists, is not that they are too critical, but that they are too "innocent," that it is too difficult to inject effective propaganda, that kitsch is more pliable to this end.

Clement Greenberg

#10. In the arts, foolhardiness is always harmful; even worse, however, is clumsiness.

Franz Grillparzer

#11. We [must] realize that our future lies chiefly in our own hands.

Paul Robeson

#12. I have visited people whose health has been endangered by tar sands oil. I have watched neighbors struggle to recover from Superstorm Sandy. I have seen solar panels and wind turbines become an increasingly familiar part of the landscape.

Frances Beinecke

#13. Write about what makes you different.

Sandra Cisneros

#14. I have not moved out of the comedian's box into the news box. The news box is moving towards me.

Jon Stewart

#15. The building blocks of meditation are relaxation and concentration. If you cannot relax, you cannot meditate. If you cannot concentrate, you cannot meditate. No exceptions.

Gudjon Bergmann

#16. The back again carrying Bilbo, was grabbed from behind in the dark. He shouted

J.R.R. Tolkien

#17. When you attain to an egoless emptiness great creativity happens.

Rajneesh

#18. Kitsch is Mechanical and operates by formulas.

Clement Greenberg

#19. Kitsch is deceptive. It has many different levels, and some of them are high enough to be dangerous to the naive seeker of true light.

Clement Greenberg

#20. My message is, as it alway has been, moderation: meat as a main course on three days a week, eggs on one, fish on one other and some form of vegetarian meal on the rest constitute a perfectly acceptable, interesting and varied diet.

Delia Smith