Art

Jean-Baptiste Greuze: “The Father’s Curse: The Ungrateful Son” (1777)

July 14, 2026 Mike Zonta Leave a comment

Artwork: Jean-Baptiste Greuze, The Father’s Curse: The Ungrateful Son, 1777, oil on canvas, Musée du Louvre, Paris. Greuze depicts a patriarch who interprets his child’s independence as treachery. The father transforms departure into disobedience, then condemns the son for escaping his authority.

Jean-Baptiste Greuze The Father's Curse: The Ungrateful Son

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“Everything has been figured out, except how to live.”
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“Show up. Dive in. Keep at it.”
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“Give me some TRUTH!”
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“At times I think and at times I am.”
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“I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth – and truth rewarded me.”
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“The Cosmic Intention is to evolve from a thing to a think.”
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“It is so respectful to not get involved in somebody else’s angst.”
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“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
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“[B]y man came death. [By God comes life].”
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“The inner children of the past shut up when you listen to them.”
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“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.”
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“We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.”
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“Loneliness is the poverty of self, solitude is the richness of self.”
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“Man will not be satisfied until he is everywhere equally present.”
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“Human consciousness is how the universe understands itself.”
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“Gravity is a matter of interest.”
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“What was once invention is now convention.”
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“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on, but once it gets its pants on, watch out!!!”
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“Love believes all things and yet is never deceived.”
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“My life is not mine.”
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“Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage.”
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“Our deepest fears are like dragons guarding our deepest treasure.”
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“Everyone has got some preconceptions, but you have to readjust them in front of reality. Reality has the last word.”
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“Love? What is it? Most natural pain killer what there is. LOVE.”
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“We acquire the strength we have overcome.”
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“I am all other men.”
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“Man is, that he might have joy.”
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“To the man who can perfectly practice inaction, all things are possible.”
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“People will forget what you say, but they will never forget how you make them feel.”
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“We have a right to know the truth; no right to ask anything else from God, but the right to know that.”
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“Don’t look at me like I’ve gotten old or something like that.”
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“Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”
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“Peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away”
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“I REFUSE to participate in a recession.”
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“We believe . . . different from Wall Street. We believe customer No. 1, employee No. 2, and shareholder No. 3. This is my religion.”
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“Fear is a choice.”
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“When people asked [Jacques Cousteau], ‘Well, Captain, what do you expect to find?’ he always said, ‘If I knew, I wouldn’t go.’”
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“And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
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“Often people think that it’s a question of adrenaline, [that] it’s an adrenaline addiction. I think what they are addicted to essentially is brotherhood. It’s a very healthy impulse that is taking place in a very unhealthy place.”
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— G.K. Chesterton

“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only at night.”
— Edgar Allan Poe

“Give thanks to unknown blessings already on their way.”
— Native American proverb at cafe in San Francisco

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”
–e.e. cummings

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Bathtub Bulletin

Jean-Baptiste Greuze: “The Father’s Curse: The Ungrateful Son” (1777)

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Consciousness, spirituality, biography, sexuality, androgyny, futurism, space, the arts, science, astrology, democracy, humor, books, movies and more