Michael Leunig Quotes

Wisdom may best arise from a humbling reality.

Arise , Best , Reality

A good memory is surely a compost heap that converts experience to wisdom, creativity, or dottiness; not that these things are of much earthly value, but at least they may keep you amused when the world is keeping you locked away or shutting you out.

Creativity , Experience , Good

There can be many reasons to travel, but wandering into the world for no particular reason is a sublime madness, which in all its whimsy and pointlessness may depict the story of life – and indeed could be a useful model to keep in mind, seeing as so much of life's ambition comes unstuck or leads to nothing much at all.

Ambition , Life , Madness

I think we live in delusional times, whether it's with a great ability to totally distract ourselves with technology, or with speed and the velocity of life.

Great , Life , Speed

The work of the artist is to express what is repressed or even to speak the unspoken grief of society.

Artist , Grief , Work

I am probably not alone in sensing above me the huge corporations and monstrous banks, science, politics and technologies, spy satellites and stock markets, military systems and massive wealth – forces and dynamics I don't understand or can hardly imagine.

Alone , Politics , Wealth

The hypocrisy of some is that we like to think of ourselves as sophisticated and evolved, but we're still also driven by primal urges like greed and power.

Driven , Greed , Hypocrisy

In nicey-nicey land, you must be happy-clappy and positive all the time – bad news is taboo.

Land , News , Time

Existential philosophy, poetry and art – just like sadness – were all unavoidable to a tender young man in the meat works.

Art , Philosophy , Sadness

Today, people call each other 'guys' – this derives from Guy Fawkes, the bomb-making terrorist. No greater tribute has ever been paid to anyone in the history of politics.

History , Paid , Today

What modern humans need help with is escaping from the despair of politics, commerce and media, escaping from the drabness and oppressiveness of worldly values and seeing through suburban mentality and normal community standards so that they can find some much-needed relief for their wilting souls.

Community , Help , Media

Avoiding maturity is, for many men, not just a cute hobby, but a life's work – often handsomely rewarded in the infantile popular culture of the West.

Culture , Life , Work

Sadly, semi-consciousness, along with daydreaming, is a capacity that is actively discouraged among children in schools, and our society is much poorer and harsher as a consequence. The value of liminal space and transitional imagination remain personally and culturally undeveloped.

Society , Space , Value

There's a particular sensitivity required to be an artist, and a certain vulnerability, perhaps, and also, somewhere between, you're in your body a lot, too. It's much more physical than one would imagine because I think it's the body where the imagination lives somehow. I do feel the imagination isn't just in the brain up there.

Artist , Body , Brain

Happiness, it's a small thing – just a very little thing.

Small

The human relationship to combustion is as mysterious as it is fraught with madness. From the candle flame to the nuclear blast, it has lit up the human imagination with fear and fascination.

Candle , Flame , Madness

We might imagine that Jesus had many human faults. He failed most humanly, in my reckoning, when he killed the fig tree just because it didn't bear any figs for his breakfast; that was a disgraceful, bad-tempered thing to do, and to try and make a virtue of it by saying it was a demonstration of faith only made things worse.

Breakfast , Jesus , Tree

A street full of electric light is a sign of civic failure and is an insulting injury to the soul. Shutting out the night is as disastrous as shutting out the light.

Light , Night , Soul

It is known that wildfires behave unpredictably – this is fundamental – but it is my experience that humans in the presence of wildfire are also likely to behave in aberrant and unpredictable ways.

Humans , Presence , Ways

Easter is reflecting upon suffering for one thing, but it also reflects upon Jesus and his non compliance in the face of great authority where he holds to his truth – so there's two stories there.

Great , Suffering , Truth