Motivational Quotes

Art

The finest works of art are precious, among other reasons, because they make it possible for us to know, if only imperfectly and for a little while, what it actually feels like to think subtly and feel nobly.

- Huxley, Aldous

Best Quotes about Art

Some people carry their heart in their head and some carry their head in their heart. The trick is to keep them apart yet working together.

Hare, David

One of the most striking signs of the decay of art is when we see its separate forms jumbled together.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

There never was any heart truly great and generous, that was not also tender and compassionate.

Frost, Robert

What distinguishes modern art from the art of other ages is criticism.

Paz, Octavio

The object of art is to give life a shape. [Midsummer Nights Dream]

Shakespeare, William

Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting with the gift of speech.

Simonides

Art never improves, but the material of art is never quite the same.

Eliot, T. S.

Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.

Benjamin, Walter

10.

In free society art is not a weapon. Artists are not engineers of the soul.

Kennedy, John F.

11.

The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.

Walt Whitman

12.

It is the cause, not the death that makes the martyr.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

13.

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.

Pablo Picasso

14.

Life isn't long enough for love and art.

W. Somerset Maugham

15.

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.

Duke Ellington

16.

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.

Keller, Helen

17.

A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment.

Trilling, Lionel

18.

Often while reading a book one feels that the author would have preferred to paint rather than write; one can sense the pleasure he derives from describing a landscape or a person, as if he were painting what he is saying, because deep in his heart he would have preferred to use brushes and colors.

Picasso, Pablo

19.

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

20.

I know just how frustrating it can be when you're tired and exhausted, but you still want to draw something.

Ward Jenkins

21.

Classic art was the art of necessity: modern romantic art bears the stamp of caprice and chance.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

22.

Man is always partial and is quite right to be. Even impartiality is partial.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

23.

Like other parties of the kind, it was first silent, then talky, then argumentative, then disputatious, then unintelligible, then altogether, then inarticulate, and then drunk. When we had reached the last step of this glorious ladder, it was difficult to get down again without stumbling.

Byron, Lord

24.

Illusions are art, for the feeling person, and it is by art that you live, if you do.

Elizabeth Bowen

25.

There is nothing enduring in life for a women except what she builds in a man's heart.

Anderson, Judith

26.

I never spend more than one hour in a gallery. That is as long as one's power of appreciation persists.

W. Somerset Maugham

27.

What is Art? It is the response of man's creative soul to the call of the Real.

Tagore, Rabindranath

28.

Drink, and dance and laugh and lie, love the reeling midnight through, for tomorrow we shall die! (But, alas, we never do.)

Parker, Dorothy

29.

Twentieth-century art may start with nothing, but it flourishes by virtue of its belief in itself, in the possibility of control over what seems essentially uncontrollable, in the coherence of the inchoate, and in its ability to create its own values.

Alvarez, A.

30.

Without poets, without artists, men would soon weary of nature's monotony. The sublime idea men have of the universe would collapse with dizzying speed. The order which we find in nature, and which is only an effect of art, would at once vanish. Everything would break up in chaos. There would be no seasons, no civilization, no thought, no humanity; even life would give way, and the impotent void would reign everywhere.

Apollinaire, Guillaume

31.

The powerful play goes on -- and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

32.

The vitality of a new movement in Art must be gauged by the fury it arouses.

Smith, Logan Pearsall

33.

Progressive art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately, it can propel people toward social emancipation.

Davis, Angela Y.

34.

Love can heal a broken heart.

35.

In any society, the artist has a responsibility. His effectiveness is certainly limited and a painter or writer cannot change the world. But they can keep an essential margin of non-conformity alive. Thanks to them the powerful can never affirm that everyone agrees with their acts. That small difference is important.

Bunuel, Luis

36.

With an apple I will astonish Paris.

Cezanne, Paul

37.

Martyrdom does not end something, it only a beginning.

Gandhi, Indira

38.

Impartial. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy.

Bierce, Ambrose

39.

The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist.

Jacob, Max

40.

Nature is inside art as its content, not outside as its model.

Frye, Northrop

41.

Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before.

Edith Wharton

42.

To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can't eat it.

Tolstoy, Count Leo

43.

If the heart wanders or is distracted, bring it back to the point quite gently and replace it tenderly in its Master's presence. And even if you did nothing during the whole ofyour hour but bring your heart back and place it again in Our Lord's presence, though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well employed.

Francis De Sales, St.

44.

You're confusing product with process. Most people, when they criticize, whether they like it or hate it, they're talking about product. That's not art, that's the result of art. Art, to whatever degree we can get a handle on (I'm not sure that we really can) is a process. It begins in the heart and the mind with the eyes and hands.

Jeff Melvoin

45.

Art is the final cunning of the human soul which would rather do anything than face the gods.

Murdoch, Iris

46.

Were art to redeem man, it could do so only by saving him from the seriousness of life and restoring him to an unexpected boyishness.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

47.

Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize.

Kael, Pauline

48.

Have thy heart in heaven and thy hands upon the earth. Ascend in piety and descend in charity. For this is the Nature of Light and the way of the children.

Vaughan, Thomas

49.

One thing that makes art different from life is that in art things have a shape... it allows us to fix our emotions on events at the moment they occur, it permits a union of heart and mind and tongue and tear.

French, Marilyn

50.

I can't criticize what I don't understand. If you want to call this art, you've got the benefit of all my doubts.

Charles Rosin