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The chess pieces are the block alphabet which shapes thoughts; and these thoughts, although making a visual design on the chess-board, express their beauty abstractly, like a poem.. .I have come to the personal conclusion that while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.

— Marcel Duchamp

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More quotes by Marcel Duchamp

I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own tastes.

To be looked at [from the other side of his art-work 'The Glass'] with one eye, close to, for almost an hour.

..paint was always [in history of painting] a means to an end, whether the end was religious, social, decorative or romantic. Now it's become an end in itself..

You think you're doing something entirely your own, and a year later, you look at it and you see actually the roots of where your art comes from without your knowing it at all.

Art Is the Highest Form of Hope & Other Quotes by Artists by Phaidon (2016)

The only man in the past whom I really respect was Seurat.. .He didn't let his hand interfere with his mind.

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Attribution

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