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If you want to do anything new you must first make sure you know what people have tried before.

— Ernst Gombrich A Little History of the World (2005)

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More quotes by Ernst Gombrich

Even though I came from a Jewish home myself, it never entered my head that such horrors might be repeated in my own lifetime.

A Little History of the World (2005)

Anyone who can handle a needle convincingly can make us see a thread which is not there.

Art and Illusion (1960)

There really is no such thing as Art. There are only artists.

Images apparently occupy a curious position somewhere between the statements of language, which are intended to convey a meaning, and the things of nature, to which we only can give a meaning.

Symbolic Images (1972)

Like art, science is born of itself, not of nature. There is no neutral naturalism. The artist, no less than the writer, needs a vocabulary before he can embark on a 'copy' of reality.

E. H. Gombrich (1962)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Ernst Gombrich (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.