Tehching Hsieh famous quotes

Now, a lot of people look for answers in spirituality or different texts, but for me this is life. This is what life is: the passage of time. It's not about how to pass the time, but about the acceptance of the time passing. I know people think of my work as spiritual, but really it's just that I consume time. That's all.
-- Tehching Hsieh

#Spiritual #Acceptance #Thinking

One year to me is just a small section of life. For most humans, one year is a long time and so much happens. But for the universe, it's very temporary.
-- Tehching Hsieh

#Long #Temporary #Universe

I perform in art time and in real time, and you can't tell the difference - no one knows how to separate a real act from an art act in my work. When I lived on the street for a year, people only knew that I was homeless. They didn't know that I was an artist doing a piece. I have to use real time in my work. I do, however, have to find a subtle way of documenting real time, in order for people to have a response. That means punching into a work clock every hour in the case of one piece.
-- Tehching Hsieh

#Art #Real #Mean

For me, I make a schedule and I pass the time. I don't think about the transformation. When my schedule says I'm finished on this day, I put it in the past and go toward my future.
-- Tehching Hsieh

#Thinking #Past #Transformation

I quit painting very early. I just jumped ship. In a way, the window is the tragic possibility - you can jump out into your future. That kind of action is more like a direction. It's that same thinking that brought me to New York.
-- Tehching Hsieh

#Thinking #Action #Painting

I come from a painting background, and although my painting is completely different from my performances, there is something about the fundamentals of that training that transfers over to this idea of an exercise and being diligent about mapping something out in advance - even if it is just being aesthetically diligent.
-- Tehching Hsieh

#Exercise #Training #Different

I know I am a human being. I can give myself to one year for a project. That is why I say I'm primitive in the way I work, especially compared to most artists. I came to New York in 1974, knowing that it is the art center of the world. But I didn't go to find people for my work. I do the work, and the people come to me, and I learn from them. That has always been my approach - to do the job first and then to respond to it after I finish and learn what people think about it. That's how I develop, and I'm more of an outsider in that way.
-- Tehching Hsieh

#Art #Thinking #People

We begin life with the natural, next we come into the spiritual; but then, when we have truly received the kingdom of God and His righteousness, the natural is added to the spiritual, and we are able to receive the gifts of His providence and the blessings of life without becoming centered in them or allowing them to separate us from Him.

Our first duty is to satisfy the spiritual master, who can arrange for the Lord's mercy. A common man must first begin to serve the spiritual master or the devotee. Then, through the mercy of the devotee, the Lord will be satisfied. Unless one receives the dust of a devotee's lotus feet on one's head, there is no possibility of advancement. Unless one approaches a pure devotee, he cannot understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Out of many millions of wandering living entities, one who is very fortunate gets an opportunity to associate with a bonafide spiritual master by the grace of Krishna. By the mercy of both Krishna and the spiritual masters, such a person receives the seed of the creeper of devotional service.

A bona fide spiritual master, under the guidance of authorities, can turn anyone to the Vaisnava cult so that naturally he may come to the topmost position of a brahmana.

Everybody should do in their lifetime, sometime, two things. One is to consider death...to observe skulls and skeletons and to wonder what it will be like to go to sleep and never wake up-never. That is a most gloomy thing for contemplation; it's like manure. Just as manure fertilizes the plants and so on, so the contemplation of death and the acceptance of death is very highly generative of creating life. You'll get wonderful things out of that.

The interesting adults are always the school failures, the weird ones, the losers, the malcontents, this isn’t wishful thinking. It’s the rule.

Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

Our God has boundless resources. The only limit is in us. Our asking, our thinking, our praying are too small. Our expectations are too limited.

Fear is born of Satan, and if we would only take time to think a moment we would see that everything Satan says is founded upon a falsehood.

My goal has been to encourage jointness, to push people to think of affiliations rather than to operate as solo entrepreneurs.