from Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1911)

The unbounded warmth of red has not the irresponsible appeal of yellow, but it rings inwardly with a determined and powerful intensity. It glows in itself, maturely, and does not distribute its vigour aimlessly.
p40


We stand and gaze fascinated, till all of a sudden the explanation bursts suddenly upon us. It is the conviction that nothing mysterious can ever happen in our everyday life that has destroyed the joy of abstract thought.
p50


Conventional beauty must go by the board and the literary element of "story-telling" or "anecdote" must be abandoned as useless. Both arts [literature and painting] must learn from music that every harmony and every discord which springs from the inner spirit is beautiful, but that it is essential that they should spring from the inner spirit and that alone.
p51

Kandinsky, Colourful Ensemble, 1938