Mel Devlin Native English Language Teacher

Great Artists on: "What is Art"

"We have art in order not to die of the truth" —Nietzsche

"The consequences of counterfeit art are the perversion of man, pleasure which never satisfies, and the weakening of man's spiritual strength." ~ Leo Tolstoy

“My belief is that art should not be comforting; for comfort, we have mass entertainment and one another. Art should provoke, disturb, arouse our emotions, expand our sympathies in directions we may not anticipate and may not even wish.”~ Joyce Carol Oates

"I don't know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the fact that life doesn't make sense." ~ David Lynch

"The purpose of art is to wash the dust of daily life off our souls." Pablo Picasso

"Art is to console those who are broken by life."- Vincent Van Gogh

"All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story, to vomit the anguish up." — James Baldwin

I'M GOING TO LEARN OR IMPROVE MY ENGLISH LANGUAGE SKILLS?
Christmas will come and go in the blink off an eye and then it'll be the New Year before we know it.
For 2026 why not be courageous and take that step and give yourself a realistic new years resolution. Why not make that New Years resolution this one:

I'M GOING TO LEARN OR IMPROVE MY ENGLISH LANGUAGE SKILLS?

As a piece of encourage, read on.
Most modern freedom is at the root of most of our fears. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities.

Take the case of courage.

No quality has ever so much addled the brains and tangled the definitions of merely rational sages. Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.

'He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,' is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book.

This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if we will risk it on the precipice.

He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it.

A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying.

He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape.

He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a su***de, and will not escape.

He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.

The soul needs fire, not ease.
Trials and tribulations of an agonizing
passion that propels it toward its destiny. It
needs adventure, daring shenanigans, and
a fierce audacity to transcend that
culturally-defined, yet loathsome
word we call "expectations."

The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:

1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.

2. Do not think it worthwhile to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.

3. Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.

4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.

5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.

6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.

7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.

9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.

10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.