TO BE OR TO HAVE

Having and being are two fundamental modes of experience, the respective strengths of which
determine the differences between the characters and various types of social character. - Erich
Fromm, “To Have or To Be?” (1976)
While a common reaction to seeing a thing of beauty is to want to buy it, our real desire may be
not so much to own what we find beautiful as to lay permanent claim to the inner qualities it
embodies… What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically
possess, the objects and places that touch us. - Alain de Botton, “The Architecture of
Happiness” (2006)
I’m interested in things which suggest the world rather than suggest the personality. I’m
interested in things which suggest things which are, rather than in judgments. The most
conventional thing, the most ordinary thing—it seems to me that those things can be dealt with
without having to judge them; they seem to me to exist as clear facts, not involving aesthetic
hierarchy. - Jasper Johns, interview with David Sylvester, (1965)