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Art Young

88 quotes

“Capitalism is an old man gone insane. Terrified and desperate, but still able to fight with a vicious strength, as a last chance he runs amok. Now it is in Spain, as it was in Italy, Germany, and Austria. With no thought of consequences, this monster is on his final rampage to rule or ruin, and to ruin all hope of progress the world over is preferable to a confession of having outlived his time. That is the scene as I see it.”
Art Young (1866–1943) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: in New Masses (Sep 8, 1936)
“If he has illuminated the dark and serious subject with a suspicion of fun-it is meant to convey the hope he feels for all sinners like himself, that some relief of a slightly humorous nature may be found even in Hell.”
Art Young (1866–1943) first seen 1901 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Through Hell with Hiprah Hunt (1901)
“I was to see more of the class struggle in the near future without knowing what it meant. Indeed, at that time, when I was 20 years old, I knew hardly anything except that I had a knack for drawing pictures and was pretty good at reciting selections from books of poetry. (Chapter 8. I see Chicago Justice at Close Range)”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everything I read about the Chicago Anarchists in 1886 and 1887 and nearly everything I heard about them indicated that the accused men were guilty. The news reports of the case in the dailies were quite as biased against the defendants as were the editorials. Few who read the charges that some of them had advocated violence against the police realized that they were driven to that extreme by the wanton clubbing, shooting, and killing of workers by the police in the fight of the big industries against the eight-hour day movement. (Chapter 10. Four Dissenters Silenced by the Rope)”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With all my self-consciousness about looks (and it maybe a feminine streak that is said to be in every artist), I have long had a dislike for individuals who judge others by surface aspects, whether it be a matter of clothes regarded as incorrect for the occasion, a spot on a shirt-front, or need of a shave. Keeping up appearances all too often is the concern of persons who have nothing else worth keeping up.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Novel reading called for wading through too much type. I had no patience for that. The very word "fiction" I abhorred. I wanted truth. Short stories, poems, paragraphs, brief essays, picture books-anything boiled down was more to my liking.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had another year to go when I quit (high) school-but I felt I was getting dumber and dumber each term, and that it would be a waste of time to continue.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A good illustrator may draw from models but knows how to forget them.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I made about ten drawings with a joke comment or dialogue for every one that I finished and sold. Thus I kept exercising my hand and eye.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The flaring hoop-skirt had had its day, but complete coverage was still the fashion, woman's form being left to one's imagination.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After a few weeks I decided to graduate myself to the life classes of Kenyon Cox and Carroll Beckwith on the floor above, and strangely enough, no one objected; I just walked in as if I belonged.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Inspiration from my youthful partial knowledge of Dore's work had carried me a long way. But now I was becoming acquainted with the political and social satires of other leading graphic artists in England and France-Hogarth, Rowlandson, John Leech, George Cruikshank, John Tenniel, Daumier, and Steinlen, and all of these held important and increasing values for me.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Journalism today is for the most part gentlemanly and decorous, in so far as the relations among newspapers in the big cities are concerned.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Although I knew that art schools could not make artists, I enjoyed the environment and the thought that I had an aim in life.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Usually politics was my theme, varied now and then, on an off day, by some travesty on prevailing fads.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“in 1933, fifty-three years after the sweeping defeat of this movement which had reaped so much editorial and oratorical abuse, its supposed evil nature had been forgotten, and Congress voted for the payment of government bonds in currency, one of the demands of the Greenback convention in 1880. And in the intervening years other planks in the Greenback platform had been embodied in government policies or had been generally approved in principle.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have always been sensitive to competent oratory, and from that year to the present time have heard all kinds-most of it I would say, as one of Plutarch's noble Grecians or Romans put it, "tall and lofty like a cypress tree, but bearing no fruit.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It seems unbelievable at this distance that we assailed a candidate because he combed his hair the wrong way, but that is a part of the record of mud-slinging in American politics. And I was a participant on the front page of a leading newspaper [The Inter-Ocean].”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Speakers for the Social Democratic party provided me with much food for thought. They attacked the whole capitalistic system, showed how its different units combined to exploit the producing masses to the nth degree, and how the distorted or suppressed news to protect this system, of which it was a part. Being loyal to the press, my first reaction to this denunciation was one of resentment, though I had to concede that some of the charges were true.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Perhaps no editor has been so guilty of stirring up the baser passions of human beings as Hearst. Often in his early years as an editor and publisher, he did some political arousings on the side of the workers. It helped him get circulation. Gradually, however, he evolved a policy which prevailed over all liberal doctrines that he might advocate-devoting his publications to the will of the big moneyed interests to have and to retain everything that they possessed and to insure their hopes of getting more through their 'superior intelligence'”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now that I was awakening to the realities of the economic struggle, I realized that I could no longer conscientiously deal with certain subjects in the way that editors wanted them handled. I had ideas for pictorial attacks on institutions hooked up with the money power, but there was no sale for these. The few papers which dared strike at the system were small, and had no money to pay for my product. And I had to live and support a family.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Where was I headed? I didn't quite know. I had talent, facility, and a desire to produce-but steadily my market was diminishing. I fell back on illustrated jokes, and even here struck a snag. Tramps were no longer so funny to me as they had been. And my attitude toward the farmer had changed-I no longer wanted to depict him as a mere comic character. His life was all too often bound up with tragedy. The Populists had been right in many of the things they had said about the farmer's plight.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“we got a hint of how the Espionage Act would be used as a club against people with anti-war beliefs”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Most of us who were cooperatively bringing out the Masses were agreed upon that. Some channel of protest must be safeguarded for those who had not been stampeded into dumb obeisance to the world's war-makers.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Slacker had come into the language as a term of frequent use. Bundles of Hearst newspapers had been burned in Times Square because Hearst was slow in swinging to the Allied cause but in a few weeks he had swung, and American flags were printed all over his daily sheets. So-called pro-Germans were being tarred and feathered by mobs in the West. Frank Little of the I.W.W. executive board had been lynched by business men in Butte, Montana. And new and appalling tales of cruelty to conscientious objectors were coming out of the prisons where they were confined.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My world had grown small and shaky. I learned what ostracism means. Men and women whom I had counted as friends found it convenient to pass me on the street without speaking, or were brief and impersonal in their conversation. And often I felt that I was being pointed out as a treasonable being to be shunned as one would the plague.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The term "Wobbly", said to have been fastened on the I. W. W. members in derision by a Los Angeles editor, had been adopted by them with enthusiasm.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Editors of most of the magazines where I had long had entree also shied at my offerings. Sometimes they attempted to explain, but there was no need-it was obvious that they could not afford to continue using the work of one who was being prosecuted by the government on sedition charges. Thus I had difficulty in making a living. But there was one editor who stood by me-Jacob Marinoff, of the Big Stick, a Jewish humorous weekly, which also was under surveillance by the federal authorities.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One week-end during that trial I went up to Monroe to see my folks. They made me feel at home as always, doing everything possible to insure my comfort. But I noticed that greetings from some of my old acquaintances around town lacked the warmth of the past. They talked with me nervously and seemed to be in a hurry, as if they might be open to criticism if they were seen tarrying with one who had been accused of disloyalty to his country.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of course clergymen and other paid teachers and moralists admonished us to be upright and unselfish, and for people with good incomes it was easy to condemn those living on the edge of poverty as inferior, impractical, shiftless, and lacking respect for the social code. It was easy to shout thief at the other fellow when you had no temptation to steal-I mean steal in a petty way. But stealing in a big way was often accepted as good business judgment.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I found that life was a continual struggle for most of us-and this on a plane not much above that of the struggle of wild animals-and that society dismissed this obvious truth as a negligible factor in determining human conduct as well as our mental and physical well-being. I began to see that this economic battle persisted even in the midst of an exhaustless plenty, and that most humans lived and died trying to succeed in a material sense, in short, to reach the goal of a triumphant animalism.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So most of us pray not for riches, but for just enough to assure our living in normal comfort and perhaps a little extra for funeral expenses at the end.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I do not think of myself as having arrived at any degree of achievement commensurate with my potential talent and capacity for work. I am just one among the many who have tried to approximate some measure of integrity in a world that is a sorry bewilderment of wretchedness and affluence.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“During the last four decades of his life-journey, as this chronicle has revealed, it became more and more evident that there was one wrong, one thing over all, standing in the way of honest and contented living the unjust treatment of those who produce the wealth of the world by those who own most of that wealth; and that the continual fight between the moneyed interests and the working people (including artists) was the vital problem of our time. Now, during these recurring and ever-increasing conflicts, is it not obvious that we have to take sides? I think it has come to that, for all of us.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I do believe that man is destined to be released for a more ennobling life, when each one of us can go even farther with our talent or natural ability than we thought possible.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“the change is at hand-the old order is cracking. It has been said that 'the cure for democracy is more democracy'”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The horror of unemployment is the final undoing of the worker. When he sees this confronting him he sells himself regardless of the intrinsic worth of his ability. Labor unions and collective bargaining arose to give him some show of power and dignity.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Individual development depends upon mass-solution of the economic problems of everyday living. The inventors, thinkers, and the common man have made this world ripe for healthful leisure, and have created far more than enough goods for all. But through all this progress the business man has assumed the right to the lion's share while those who did the creating and hard work were compelled to fight for whatever they could get-or starve.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“the big war of 1914-1918 was not my war. It was plainly not a war for democracy but for plutocracy; not for peace but for plunder, and to make our country military-minded. It was capitalism's war-not mine.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With more and more governments, however crude and experimental, dedicated to industrial democracy and universal brotherhood, the era of peace and joy in living will come on earth.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In my youth I hoped for no higher status in life than to be among those who would follow in the wake of Thomas Nast, Joseph Keppler, and Bernhard Gillam, outstanding artists in the field of political caricature. And when in my early twenties I grew familiar with the political and social satires of the graphic artists of England and France across two centuries, these gave even greater stimulus to my ambition. Dreamily I anticipated that my destiny was to succeed as a caricaturist of some influence in public affairs.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Material considerations thwarted me at every turn. It was my money-earning ability that determined my right to exist, and I got through in a way-but what a way! Having spent so much of my time maneuvering to make enough cash with which to live decently, I count most of that effort a hindrance to my development, both as a man and as an artist. Instinctively most men are proud to be able to provide for themselves and their dependents, and I was no exception to the rule. That duty I accepted willingly. Still it seemed to me unworthy of any one to make that the main reason for living.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“experience proved that those in authority of publishing institutions were seldom impressed by that which was new or even a little different. Of course, they would tell us they wanted "something new" and were "looking for originality," but generally speaking they would accept nothing but the trite.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A conviction founded on bitter experience is often overthrown by a passing mood. We forget the sorrow that taught us our truth, and fall right into the same kind of sorrow again. It is easier to bear the loss of something you need than to have something you don't need but can't lose.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The unhappy mortal is the one who has not all the freedom his nature wants him to have. He starts to soar and then in a little time is jerked suddenly back by the thought of conventional duty. He's like the pigeon that a hunter tosses into the air to attract other pigeons and then yanks down by the string tied to its leg.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no bigger lie hurled at discouraged artists by the smug critics than: "Genius will always find its way through the direst poverty." Of course, it has been done, but at what cost to the genius no one else can know. Poverty is stifling, and having too much money can also be stifling, but most paralyzing to the creative faculties is poverty. If it ever acts as an incentive, it is more often destructive.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“September 1st: As I begin these notes, I am where I ought to be in the summer, at my home among the stone-fenced hills of Connecticut. I will be 60 years of age January next. Three things are worshipful-the Sun, giver of life; a Human Being who believes something worth while and will die for it if need be; and Art, the recreator of life. I walked to the village today and noted a gentle rise of my spirits as I watched the butterflies careen through the fields of goldenrod.”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Literature and art ought to make people soul hungry. (September 4th)”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The work of the world, the nerve, muscle and brain of human beings is the one big essential fact of our existence. Though most of labor is regimented and automatic, the skilled craft laborer, the artist producer-all, I like to think-do the best they can in a world where the big rewards go to those who have got out of the class called labor, into ownership and responsible management. (September 7th)”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“every town should have an art gallery for the people. (September 11th)”
Art Young (1866–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source