Art is the only way to run away without leaving home

My friend Jody gave me a small sketchbook, hand sewn with Japanese binding, for a Christmas present. On the cover was some small typed out writing. (I don’t know where it comes from and will investigate, but until then,) this is what it said:

It is Art that makes life, that makes Importance. I know of no substitute for the force and beauty of its Power… Art is the only way to run away without leaving home. ARS LONGA, VITA BREVES… You know you have achieved perfection in design * not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away… Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one towards the future, toward eternity… WHAT IS ART BUT A WAY OF SEEING?... I don’t want life to imitate art. I want life to be art… Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry… each of the arts whose office is to refine, purify, adorn, embellish and grace life is under the patronage of a muse, no god being found worthy to preside over them… Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life… THE ARTIST’S VOCATION IS TO SEND LIGHT INTO THE HUMAN HEART… Art is the signature of civilization … . . .

I wish I’d said that!