Motivational Quotes

Art

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

Best Quotes about Art

O, had I but followed the arts!

Shakespeare, William

The contemporary thing in art and literature is the thing which doesn't make enough difference to the people of that generation so that they can accept it or reject it.

Stein, Gertrude

Whatever an artist's personal feelings are, as soon as an artist fills a certain area on the canvas or circumscribes it, he becomes historical. He acts from or upon other artists.

Kooning, Willem De

A heart in love with beauty never grows old.

Proverb, Turkish

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

The highest problem of any art is to cause by appearance the illusion of a higher reality.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

Fine art, that exists for itself alone, is art in a final state of impotence. If nobody, including the artist, acknowledges art as a means of knowing the world, then art is relegated to a kind of rumpus room of the mind and the irresponsibility of the artist and the irrelevance of art to actual living becomes part and parcel of the practice of art.

Carter, Angela

Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.

Barenboim, Daniel

Only an artist can interpret the meaning of life.

Novalis

10.

Each work of art excludes the world, concentrates attention on itself. For the time it is the only thing worth doing --to do just that; be it a sonnet, a statue, a landscape, an outline head of Caesar, or an oration. Presently we return to the sight of another that globes itself into a whole as did the first, for example, a beautiful garden; and nothing seems worth doing in life but laying out a garden.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

11.

We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies.

Picasso, Pablo

12.

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

13.

Two things are bad for the heart -- running up stairs and running down people.

Baruch, Bernard M.

14.

Even if I died in the service of the nation, I would be proud of it. Every drop of my blood... will contribute to the growth of this nation and to make it strong and dynamic.

Gandhi, Indira

15.

Every artist writes his own autobiography.

Ellis, Havelock

16.

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

Anderson, Judith

17.

Most works of art, like most wines, ought to be consumed in the district of their fabrication.

West, Rebecca

18.

Whenever, at a party, I have been in the mood to study fools, I have always looked for a great beauty: they always gather round her like flies around a fruit stall.

Richter, Jean Paul

19.

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone.

Baldwin, James

20.

All paths are the same, leading nowhere. Therefore, pick a path with heart!

Castaneda, Carlos

21.

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

Duke Ellington

22.

Art is either plagiarism or revolution.

Paul Gauguin

23.

As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft.

Mencken, H. L.

24.

Art is the signature of civilizations.

Sills, Beverly

25.

Inside you there's an artist you don't know about. He's not interested in how things look different in moonlight.

Rumi, Jalal-Uddin

26.

All art is an imitation of nature.

Seneca

27.

A Great man is he who does not lose his childlike heart.

Mencius (Mengzi Meng-tse)

28.

The artist is the opposite of the politically minded individual, the opposite of the reformer, the opposite of the idealist. The artist does not tinker with the universe; he recreates it out of his own experience and understanding of life.

Miller, Henry

29.

An artist is a creature driven by demons. He doesn't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why.

Faulkner, William

30.

Art is an experience, not the formulation of a problem.

Anderson, Lindsay

31.

Art -- the one achievement of Man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised.

Thurber, James

32.

Wherever art appears, life disappears.

Picabia, Francis

33.

As a general truth, it is safe to say that any picture that produces a moral impression is a bad picture.

Goncourt, Edmond and Jules De

34.

I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.

Roosevelt, Theodore

35.

Fortunately art is a community effort --a small but select community living in a spiritualized world endeavoring to interpret the wars and the solitudes of the flesh.

Ginsberg, Allen

36.

Thou art my glory and the exultation of y heart: thou art my hope and refuge in the day of my trouble.

Kempis, Thomas

37.

I will soon be going out to shape all the singing tomorrows.

Peri, Gabriel

38.

I say that good painters imitated nature; but that bad ones vomited it.

Miguel de Cervantes

39.

What better way to prove that you understand a subject than to make money out of it?

Rosenberg, Harold

40.

One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum, in which men steal through existence, like sluggish waters through a marsh, without either honor or observation.

Scott, Sir Walter

41.

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.

42.

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

Elizabeth Bowen

43.

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

44.

There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.

Pablo Picasso

45.

It is a weakness that I lead from my heart, and not my head?

Diana, Princess of Wales

46.

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

Jacob, Max

47.

The head learns new things, but the heart forever practices old experiences.

Beecher, Henry Ward

48.

Not everything has a name. Some things lead us into a realm beyond words.