The Permanent Endurance of Art - Joseph Conrad

"The artist appeals to that part of our being which...is a gift and not an acquisition...and, therefore, more permanently enduring."

...good stuff.  I especially like thinking about the difference between gift and acquisition, and, how to touch the 'gift' side of the spectrum with art.

"The changing wisdom of successive generations discards ideas, questions facts, demolishes theories. But the artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition--and, therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation--and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts, to the solidarity in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear, which binds men to each other, which binds together all humanity--the dead to the living and the living to the unborn." - Joseph Conrad