Piet Hein Quotes

As Eternity has reckoned There's a lifetime in a second ~ Piet Hein

It isn't enough to exasperate others. You have to remember to gladden yourself! ~ Piet Hein

I'd like to know
what this whole show
is all about
before it's out. ~ Piet Hein

Whenever you're called on to make up your mind,
and you're hampered by not having any,
the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find,
is simply by spinning a penny.
No - not so that chance shall decide the affair
while you're passively standing there moping;
but the moment the penny is up in the air,
you suddenly know what you're hoping. ~ Piet Hein

A WORD TO THE WISE
Let the world pass in its time-ridden race;
never get caught in its snare.
Remember, the only acceptable case
for being in any particular place
is having no business there. ~ Piet Hein

Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by fighting back. ~ Piet Hein

Losing one glove is certainly painful, but nothing compared to the pain, of losing one, throwing away the other, and finding the first one again. ~ Piet Hein

A bit beyond perceptions reach I sometimes believe I see that life is two locked boxes each containing the other's key ~ Piet Hein

THE WISDOM OF THE SPHERES
How instructive
is a star!
It can teach us
from afar
just how small
each other are. ~ Piet Hein

Nobody can be lucky all the time, / so when your luck deserts you in some fashion / don't think you've been abandoned in your prime, / but rather that you're saving up your ration ~ Piet Hein

REFLECTION ON SIZE
Small people often overrate
the charm of being tall;
which is, that you appreciate
the charm of being small. ~ Piet Hein

Love while you've love to give.
Live while you've got life to live. ~ Piet Hein

Art is solving problems that cannot be formulated before they have been solved. The shaping of the question is part of the answer. ~ Piet Hein

Here is a fact
that should help you fight
a bit stronger
Things that don't
actually kill you outright
make you stronger.
Put up in a place
where it is easy to see
the cryptic admonishment
T.T.T
When you feel how depressingly
slowly you climb
it's well to remember that
Things Take Time.
Problems worthy
of attack
prove their worth
by hitting back! ~ Piet Hein

Shepherds use religion to fight wars, sheep fight over religion. ~ Piet Hein Wokke

PRESCRIPTION

A bit
of virtue
will never
hurt you. ~ Piet Hein

THE FINAL TOUCH
Portrait of nobody in particular
Idiots are really
one hundred per cent
when they are also
intelligent. ~ Piet Hein

It ought to be plain how little you gain by getting excited and vexed. You'll always be late for the previous train, and always on time for the next. ~ Piet Hein

CANDLE WISDOM
If you knew
what you will know
when your candle
has burnt low,
it would greatly
ease your plight
while your candle
still burns bright. ~ Piet Hein

BRAVE
To be brave is to behave
bravely when your heart is faint.
So you can be really brave
only when you really ain't. ~ Piet Hein

MAKING AN EFFORT
Our so-called limitations, I believe,
apply to faculties we don't apply.
We don't discover what we can't achieve
until we make an effort not to try. ~ Piet Hein

Knowing what / Thou knowest not / Is in a sense / Omniscience. -Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996) ~ Piet Hein

PRAYER to the sun above the clouds.
Sun that givest all things birth,
shine on everything on earth!
If that's too much to demand,
shine at least on this our land.
If even that's too much for thee,
shine at any rate on me. ~ Piet Hein

SMALL THINGS
& GREAT
He that lets
the small things bind him
leaves the great
undone behind him. ~ Piet Hein

THE CURE FOR EXHAUSTION
Sometimes, exhausted
with toil and endeavour,
I wish I could sleep
for ever and ever;
but then this reflection
my longing allays:
I shall be doing it
one of these days. ~ Piet Hein

ASTRO-GYMNASTICS
Go on a starlit night,
stand on your head,
leave your feet dangling
outwards into space,
and let the starry
firmament you tread
be, for the moment,
your elected base.
Feel Earth's colossal weight
of ice and granite,
of molten magma,
water, iron, and lead;
and briefly hold
this strangely solid planet
balanced upon
your strangely solid head. ~ Piet Hein

Mankind
Men, said the Devil,
are good to their brothers:
they don't want to mend
their own ways, but each other's. ~ Piet Hein

THE ROAD TO WISDOM
The road to wisdom?
Well, it's plain
and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less. ~ Piet Hein

MEETING THE EYE
You'll probably find
that it suits your book
to be a bit cleverer
than you look.
Observe that the easiest
method by far
is to look a bit stupider
than you are. ~ Piet Hein

ON PROBLEMS
Our choicest plans
have fallen through,
our airiest castles
tumbled over,
because of lines
we neatly drew
and later neatly
stumbled over. ~ Piet Hein

THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF GASTRONOMY
There's a rule for proper doses
in the dinner-eaters lore:
one should stop the filling process
while one still has room for more.
And if someone at the table
had reminded me before -
Hallelujah! I'd be able
to absorb a little more. ~ Piet Hein

Lovers meander in prose and rhyme,
trying to say-
for the thousandth time-
what's easier done than said. ~ Piet Hein

Non-figurative art is created by establishing a dynamic rhythm of determinate mutual relations which excludes the formation of any particular form. ~ Piet Mondrian

All individual thought is dissolved in universal thought, as all form is dissolved in the universal plastic means of Abstract-Real painting. ~ Piet Mondrian

Life is like a film screen: pictures come, make an impression, go, and then make a place for new pictures with new impressions which obscure the previous ones. Some of those old pictures fade, but the impressions they leave will never pass away. Such an impression is the image of Hein Sietsma
a joyful Christian who loved life so much but was still willing to give it to the great, good, and holy cause. ~ Diet Eman

The position of the artist if humble. He is essentially a channel. ~ Piet Mondrian

Artists who shared (Paul) Klee's fundamental beliefs, such as (Piet) Mondrian, were searching for universal truths, often derived from nature and having "all-mighty power." For some, a traditional notion of God was part of this; for others, it was of no consequence. What mattered was not the precise character of the object of worship, but the shared belief in its superiority to the cult of self. (104) ~ Nicholas Fox Weber

Why should art continue to follow nature when every other field has left nature behind? ~ Piet Mondrian

The clarification of equilibrium through plastic art is of great importance for humanity. It reveals that although human life in time is doomed to disequilibrium, notwithstanding this, it is based on equilibrium. It demonstrates that equilibrium can become more and more living in us. ~ Piet Mondrian

If the paying public demands naturalistic art, then an artist can use his skills to produce such pictures - but these are to be clearly distinguished from the artist's own art. ~ Piet Mondrian

The more basic the color, the more inward, the more pure. ~ Piet Mondrian

This sacrifice of a pawn nowadays is only played for drawing purposes. Especially against the very strongest masters it has proved to be quite useful to this end. ~ Jan Hein Donner

Curves are so emotional. ~ Piet Mondrian

I could stare at the books ... until my were as dry & fuzzy as the text, but I still didn't know what to do with my feelings. ~ Elizabeth Hein

As tradition, the female element clings to the old art and opposes anything new - precisely because each new art moves further away from the natural appearance of things. ~ Piet Mondrian

Only conscious man can mirror the universal: he can consciously become one with the universal and so can consciously transcend the individual. ~ Piet Mondrian

German navy had its own tradition of assigning nicknames. One very tall commander was nicknamed Seestiefel, or sea boot. Another had a reputation for smelling bad and thus was nicknamed Hein Schniefelig, or stinky person. A third was said to be "very childish and good-natured" and was commonly called Das Kind, the child. ~ Erik Larson

Larry Hein, who wrote the blessing: May all your expectations be frustrated, may all your plans be thwarted, may all your desires be withered into nothingness, that you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child and sing and dance in the love of God who is Father, Son, and Spirit ~ Brennan Manning

In 1628, French pirates and marauding, escaped slaves plundered Santiago and burned Havana to the ground. Even the Dutch, led by Piet Heyn , sacked the Spanish fleet lying at anchor in Havana harbor. page 83, "The Exciting Story of Cuba ~ Hank Bracker

Life is like Tetris; if it doesn't fit, just flip it over ~ Sabine Hein

Subjectivity ceases to exist only when the mutation-like leap is made from subjectivity to objectivity, from individual existence to universal existence. ~ Piet Mondrian

Colored planes, by their position and size as well as by their value, express only relationships, not forms. ~ Piet Mondrian

All painting - the painting of the past as well as of the present - shows us that its essential plastic means were only line and color. ~ Piet Mondrian

Many appreciate in my former work just what I did not want to express, but which was produced by an incapacity to express what I wanted to express - dynamic movement in equilibrium. But a continuous struggle for this statement brought me nearer. This is what I am attempting in 'Victory Boogie Woogie.' ~ Piet Mondrian

The only problem in art is to achieve a balance between subjective and objective. ~ Piet Mondrian

Whoever says he is starting from a given in nature may be right, and so is he who says he is starting from nothing! ~ Piet Mondrian

The natural does not have to be a specific representation. I am now working on a thing which is a reconstruction of a starry sky, yet I make it, nevertheless, without a given in nature. ~ Piet Mondrian

The unconscious in us warns us that in art we have to followoneparticular path. And if wefollow it, it isnotthe sign of anunconscious act.On the contrary, it showsthat there is in our ordinary consciousness a greater awareness of our unconsciousness. ~ Piet Mondrian

We are born in this cemetery, but must not despair.
-Piet Soron, 1847 ~ Jesse Ball

Art is not made for anybody and is, at the same time, for everybody. ~ Piet Mondrian

The relation of color and the relation of proportion are both based on the relation of position. ~ Piet Mondrian

What is natural does not have to be a representation of something. I'm now working on a thing that is a reconstruction of a starry sky, and yet I'm making it without a given from nature. Someone who says he uses a theme from nature can be right, but also someone who says he uses nothing at all. ~ Piet Mondrian

Just as pure abstract art is not dogmatic, neither is it decorative. ~ Piet Mondrian

Vertical and horizontal lines are the expression of two opposing forces; they exist everywhere and dominate everything; their reciprocal action constitutes 'life'. I recognized that the equilibrium of any particular aspect of nature rests on the equivalence of its opposites. ~ Piet Mondrian

Dance, theatre, etc. as art, will disappear along with the dominating 'expression' of tragedy and harmony: the movement of life itself will become harmonious. ~ Piet Mondrian

I do not know how I shall develop, but for the present, I am continuing to work within ordinary, generally known terrain, different only because of a deep substratum, which leads those who are receptive to sense the finer regions. ~ Piet Mondrian

Reality manifests itself as constant and objective - independent of us, but as changeable in space and time. Consequently, its reflection in us contains both properties. Mixed up in our mind, these properties are confused and we do not have a proper image of reality. ~ Piet Mondrian