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September 17, 2014

Henri Matisse on creative work

    Pages 55-56 of my book, The Life of the Creative Spirit, collect various phrases expressing the motive for a labor of love:

    “Work is about voyaging, not about landings” — “The hunt is everything, the trophy nothing” — “The allure is in the game, not in the stakes.” To Robert Louis Stevenson it was, “To travel hopefully is a better thing than to have arrived.” To Emerson it was, “Everything good is on the highway.” To Montaigne, “The journey not the arrival matters.” And to Shakespeare, “Things won are done, joy’s soul lies in the doing.”

    The other day I came across another that gets at the idea differently, Henri Matisse’s:

    To arrive is to be in prison.

    (From The Matisse Nobody Knew, by Rosamond Bernier. DVD by Kultur.)
    For a brief biography of Henri Matisse, click here. For images of or relating to Henri Matisse, click here.

    For a brief biography of Rosamond Bernier, click here. For images of or relating to Rosamond Bernier, click here.

September 17, 2014 |

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Books by H. Charles Romesburg

  • H. Charles Romesburg: The Life of the Creative Spirit

    H. Charles Romesburg: The Life of the Creative Spirit
    Practically all of the quotations in this blog's posts are collected in "The Life of the Creative Spirit."

  • H. Charles Romesburg: How About It, Writer?

    H. Charles Romesburg: How About It, Writer?
    Based on a study of more than 12,000 essays from the very best literary magazines, this book provides writers with lists of thousands of classic forms of opening sentences, titles, transition sentences, ways of saying "for example," and ways of closing nonfiction pieces. When you are writing an essay and want a hint for a better or fresh way of saying what you mean, looking through the lists acts on the imagination, stimulating your creativity. From Lulu Press (ISBN 1-4116-2862-4, 194 pp., softback), it's $16.95 when ordered from Lulu.com/Romesburg , and $22.95 from bookstores. To view its cover, click on www.cnr.usu.edu/romesburg/how_about_it_writer.htm To view its title page, contents, and first two chapters, click on: www.cnr.usu.edu/romesburg/how_about_it_writer_preview.pdf

  • H Charles Romesburg: Best Research Practices

    H Charles Romesburg: Best Research Practices
    The Saunterer’s new book (2009), Best Research Practices explains how to plan and carry out reliable experiments, how to conceive and circumstantially support research hypotheses, how to test research hypotheses with the hypothetico-deductive method, how to discover cause and effect, and more. It’s based on his examination of 5,000 top scientific articles, studying the methods used to produce reliable knowledge. Preview it on-line by going to the following link: http://print.google.com/print?isbn=9780557017836

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