Mel Devlin Native English Language Teacher

Great Artists on: "What is Art"

"We have art in order not to die of the truth" —Nietzsche

"The consequences of counterfeit art are the perversion of man, pleasure which never satisfies, and the weakening of man's spiritual strength." ~ Leo Tolstoy

“My belief is that art should not be comforting; for comfort, we have mass entertainment and one another. Art should provoke, disturb, arouse our emotions, expand our sympathies in directions we may not anticipate and may not even wish.”~ Joyce Carol Oates

"I don't know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the fact that life doesn't make sense." ~ David Lynch

"The purpose of art is to wash the dust of daily life off our souls." Pablo Picasso

"Art is to console those who are broken by life."- Vincent Van Gogh

"All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story, to vomit the anguish up." — James Baldwin

I'M GOING TO LEARN OR IMPROVE MY ENGLISH LANGUAGE SKILLS?
Christmas will come and go in the blink off an eye and then it'll be the New Year before we know it.
For 2026 why not be courageous and take that step and give yourself a realistic new years resolution. Why not make that New Years resolution this one:

I'M GOING TO LEARN OR IMPROVE MY ENGLISH LANGUAGE SKILLS?

As a piece of encourage, read on.
Most modern freedom is at the root of most of our fears. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities.

Take the case of courage.

No quality has ever so much addled the brains and tangled the definitions of merely rational sages. Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.

'He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,' is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book.

This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if we will risk it on the precipice.

He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it.

A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying.

He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape.

He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a su***de, and will not escape.

He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.

Lithuania will take over the EU's rotating presidency in the first half of 2027.Are you ready for this take over? Most of the interaction between the member states of the EU will be through the English language,the de facto language of the EU.
A de facto language is a language used for all official government purposes in a jurisdiction, even if it isn't legally declared as an official language
So if you think you might need to up-skill in your English to meet the many challenges that will come with communicating in English to your EU counterparts? Then come to my classes. I am a highly skill and experience teacher that has specialised in the EU de facto language. I look forward to joining you on your journey to a bigger and better English language experience.

Lithuania starts preparations for EU presidency in 2027 Lithuania is starting to prepare for holding the EU's rotating presidency in the first half of 2027 after the government...

Well once again its the back to school time of the year.
Boost your career with fluent, confident English communication!

As a native English-speaking, qualified teacher based in Lithuania, I specialise in helping professionals like you reach B1 to C1+ proficiency levels quickly and effectively.

Whether you need to excel in business meetings, write compelling reports, or prepare for international certifications, my personalized lessons focus on practical skills that deliver real-world results.

Flexible scheduling and customised content ensure your learning fits seamlessly into your busy professional life.

Invest in your success—contact me today by email [email protected] and take the next step toward mastering English for your career advancement.

“There is only one type of story in the world. Your story.” Why not tell it in English?

What’s the hardest lesson you’ve had to learn as an adult, and how has it shaped you?
Ernest Hemingway once wrote: The hardest lesson I have had to learn as an adult is the relentless need to keep going, no matter how broken I feel inside.
This truth is raw, unfiltered, and painfully universal. Life doesn’t stop when we are exhausted, when our hearts are shattered, or when our spirits feel threadbare. It keeps moving—unyielding, indifferent—demanding that we keep pace. There is no pause button for grief, no intermission for healing, no moment where the world gently steps aside and allows us to mend. Life expects us to carry our burdens in silence, to push forward despite the weight of all we carry inside.
The cruelest part? No one really prepares us for this. As children, we are fed stories of resilience wrapped in neat, hopeful endings—tales where pain has purpose and every storm clears to reveal a bright horizon. But adulthood strips away those comforting illusions. It teaches us that survival is rarely poetic. More often than not, it’s about showing up when you’d rather disappear, smiling through pain no one sees, and carrying on despite feeling like you're unraveling from the inside out.
And yet, somehow, we persevere. That’s the quiet miracle of being human. Even when life is relentless, even when hope feels distant, we keep moving. We stumble, we break, we fall to our knees—but we get up. And in doing so, we uncover a strength we never knew we had. We learn to comfort ourselves in the ways we wish others would. We become the voice of reassurance we once searched for. Slowly, we realize that resilience isn’t always about grand acts of bravery; sometimes, it’s just a whisper—“Keep going.”
Yes, it’s exhausting. Yes, it’s unfair. And yes, there are days when the weight of it all feels unbearable. But every small step forward is proof that we haven’t given up. That we are still fighting, still holding on, still refusing to let the darkness consume us. That quiet defiance—choosing to exist, to try, to hope—is the bravest thing we can do.

The soul needs fire, not ease.
Trials and tribulations of an agonizing
passion that propels it toward its destiny. It
needs adventure, daring shenanigans, and
a fierce audacity to transcend that
culturally-defined, yet loathsome
word we call "expectations."

Happy to receive this nice review from my student Rumune.

The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:

1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.

2. Do not think it worthwhile to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.

3. Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.

4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.

5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.

6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.

7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.

9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.

10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.