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About this quote

What does it mean?
Great artists want to be philosophers and are never fully content. Small artists are satisfied with art alone.
In plain terms
Great artists want to be philosophers and are never just satisfied with art.
What can you take from it?
Ambition drives great artists to seek meaning beyond their craft.

Where it applies

  • artistic pursuit
  • career development

Putting it to work

  • pursue deeper meaning

Questions to consider

  • What drives great art?
  • Is dissatisfaction a strength?

Another view

Not all artists need philosophy.

More from Gilbert Keith Chesterton

  1. No man ought to write at all, or even to speak at all, unless he thinks that he is in truth and the other man in error. In similar style, I hold that I am dogm…

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  2. It is the vague modern who is not at all certain what is right who is most certain that Dante was wrong. The serious opponent of the Latin Church in history, e…

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  3. Man can hardly be defined, after the fashion of Carlyle, as an animal who makes tools; ants and beavers and many other animals make tools, in the sense that th…

    Permalink to quote #91

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