Gombrich Quotes

#1. One never finishes learning about art. There are always new things to discover.

E.H. Gombrich

#2. But like the crusaders, who in the name of piety had carried out that dreadful massacre in Jerusalem, there were many citizens who failed to hear in those penitential sermons a call to mend their ways, and instead learnt to hate all those who didn't share their faith.

E.H. Gombrich

#3. At first there's nothing to see, but you feel a sort of weariness that tells you something is in the air.

E.H. Gombrich

#4. Art does not copy nature - it suggests it.

Ernst Gombrich

#5. The history of the world is, sadly, not a pretty poem. It offers little variety, and it is nearly always the unpleasant things that are repeated, over and over again.

E.H. Gombrich

#6. China is, in fact, the only country in the world to be ruled for hundreds of years, not by the nobility, nor by soldiers, nor even by the priesthood, but by scholars.

E.H. Gombrich

#7. Cyrus became lord of that great realm. His first act was to free all the peoples held in captivity by the Babylonians. Among them were the Jews, who went home to Jerusalem

E.H. Gombrich

#8. And it is because they seem so natural that they are so beautiful.

E.H. Gombrich

#9. It's bad idea to try to prevent people from knowing their own history. If you want to do anything new you must first make sure you know what people have tried before.

E.H. Gombrich

#10. What I have always loved best about the history of the world is that it is true. That all the extraordinary things we read were no less real than you and I are today.

E.H. Gombrich

#11. There is no reality without interpretation; just as there is no innocent eye, there is no innocent ear.

E.H. Gombrich

#12. Palace with massive pillars and many courtyards, and his word was law. All the people of Egypt had to toil for him if he so decreed. And sometimes he did.

E.H. Gombrich

#13. The more we become aware of the enormous pull in man to repeat what he has learned, the greater will be our admiration for those exceptional beings who could break this spell and make a significant advance on which others could build.

E.H. Gombrich

#14. The artist creates his own elite, and the elite its own artists.

E.H. Gombrich

#15. In those days they weren't citizens as we know them, but old landowning families with vast estates of fields and meadows.

E.H. Gombrich

#16. The Painter must leave the beholder something to guess.

Ernst Gombrich

#17. One cannot explain the existence of genius. It is better to enjoy it.

Ernst Gombrich

#18. Their assemblies had taught the Athenians how to discuss all matters openly, with arguments for and against. This was good training in learning how to think.

E.H. Gombrich

#19. But Louis XIV had clever ministers, mainly men of humble origin chosen for their outstanding ability.

E.H. Gombrich

#20. If you ask me what the world looks like to me, it looks like a painting by Pissarro.

Ernst Gombrich

#21. So much gold reached Europe from India and America that burghers grew richer and richer as knights and landowners grew poorer and poorer.

E.H. Gombrich

#22. All the old bogeys of 'dignified subject-matter,' of 'balanced compositions,' of 'correct drawing' were laid to rest. The artist was responsible to no one but his own sensibilities for what he painted and how he painted it.

Ernst Gombrich

#23. All artistic discoveries are discoveries not of likenesses but of equivalencies which enable us to see reality in terms of an image and an image in terms of reality.

Ernst Gombrich

#24. The first man to understand the extraordinary magical power of applying mathematical calculation to things in nature was an Italian called Galileo Galilei.

E.H. Gombrich

#25. if we want to avoid suffering, we must start with ourselves, because all suffering comes from our own desires.

E.H. Gombrich

#26. Think of it like this. If you are sad because you can't have something you want - maybe a book or a toy - you can do one of two things: you can do your best to get it, or you can stop wanting it. Either way, if you succeed, you won't be sad any more.

E.H. Gombrich

#27. But children grow up too, and they too must learn from history how easy it is for human beings to be transformed into inhuman beings through incitement and intolerance.

E.H. Gombrich

#28. During the days of my youth, critics and art-lovers resorted freely to this term of abuse. Even some of the most renowned Old Masters were also pilloried as having manufactured insipid and sugary paintings that were offensive to good taste.

Ernst Gombrich

#29. Seeing depends on knowledge / And knowledge, of course, on your college / But when you are erudite and wise / What matters is to use your eyes.

Ernst Gombrich

#30. He spread his paint on canvas-here light, there dark-till it looked like a streaked agate stone, and then "with little trouble," he made a finished painting emerge surprisingly out of the chaos of mixed paint.

E.H. Gombrich

#31. Anyone who can handle a needle convincingly can make us see a thread which is not there.

E.H. Gombrich

#32. There really is no such thing as Art. There are only artists.

E.H. Gombrich

#33. It took some time before the public learned that to appreciate an Impressionist painting one has to step back a few yards, and enjoy the miracle of seeing these puzzling patches suddenly fall into one place and come to life before our eyes.

Ernst Gombrich

#34. All art is image making and all image making is the creation of substitutes.

Ernst Gombrich