Creativity Quote by Norman Lindsay

Lindsay doesn’t just elevate sex; he refuses to let it sit politely in the corner as biology. The line is built like a provocation: “not only” concedes the obvious, then “the reason for life” vaults from reproduction to philosophy. It’s a classic artist’s move - compressing an entire worldview into a phrase that sounds scandalous enough to force a reaction. In early-20th-century Australia, where public morality leaned Victorian long after the clock had changed, Lindsay made a career out of pagan classicism, unapologetic nudity, and a kind of sunlit hedonism that read to censors as cultural sabotage.

The subtext is less “go have more sex” than “stop pretending your ideals float above the body.” Lindsay is arguing that desire isn’t a shameful undercurrent to be managed by church and state; it’s the engine of art, risk, ambition, and intimacy. By calling sex “the reason,” he also takes a swipe at more solemn accounts of meaning - patriotism, duty, piety - suggesting they’re often decorative stories layered over the same primal force.

There’s a strategic ambiguity here too. “Sex” can mean the act, but it also gestures toward eros as a broader creative drive: the hunger that makes people paint, write, build, and chase beauty even when it’s impractical. That’s why the quote works culturally: it’s half manifesto, half dare. Agreeing with it signals modernity and frankness; rejecting it exposes how invested you are in the old hierarchy where mind outranks flesh.