Rockwell Kent

Rockwell Kent (June 21, 1882 – March 13, 1971) was an American painter, printmaker, illustrator, writer, sailor and adventurer.

Quotes

• We do, to what extent of freedom we have earned or are allowed by others and ourselves, what we most want to do. We say - speak, paint, carve, write, express ourselves...as we damn please. And in both the doing of things and the talking about them - which together seem to me to sum up life - we so crave freedom or liberty or whatever one may choose to call it as to justify our Declaration's romantically terming it an unalienable right of Man, bestowed on Man by his Creator.
  • This Is My Own, p. 130 (1940)

• While reasonable men will ungrudgingly submit to such curtailment of their liberties as will promote at least the greater liberty of all, to the exact degree to which such curtailment may become unreasonable will the enforcement of it have to rest on force. Force against reason: reason, because it has the power of enlisting force to fight for it, will win. From the recognition of that truth has come democracy.
  • This Is My Own, p. 130 (1940)

• Art must unquestionably have a social value; that is, as a potential means of communication it must be addressed, and in comprehensible terms, to the understanding of mankind.
  • It's Me O Lord: The Autobiography of Rockwell Kent (1955)