Motivational Quotes

Art

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.

Best Quotes about Art

A painting in a museum probably hears more foolish remarks than anything else in the world.

Goncourt, Edmond and Jules De

The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.

Pope, Alexander

Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me leave to do my utmost.

Isak Dineson

It isn't enough for your heart to break because everybody's heart is broken now.

Ginsberg, Allen

The notion that the public accepts or rejects anything in modern art is merely romantic fiction. The game is completed and the trophies distributed long before the public knows what has happened.

Wolfe, Thomas

It's the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance.

Midler, Bette

The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge.

Berle, Adolf

Artists are, above all, men who want to become inhuman.

Apollinaire, Guillaume

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

Murdoch, Iris

10.

Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.

Burroughs, William S.

11.

Art is an absolute mistress; she will not be coquetted with or slighted; she requires the most entire self-devotion, and she repays with grand triumphs.

Cushman, Charlotte Saunders

12.

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

13.

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

Ward Jenkins

14.

I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion --I have shuddered at it. I shudder no more --I could be martyred for my religion --Love is my religion --I could die for that.

Keats, John

15.

What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted. [Henry Iv]

Shakespeare, William

16.

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

Peri, Gabriel

17.

Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.

Latimer, Bishop Hugh

18.

I do not know what the heart of a rascal may be, but I know what is in the heart of an honest man; it is horrible.

Maistre, Joseph De

19.

Creative work is play. It is free speculation using materials of one's chosen form.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

20.

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

21.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

22.

Each of the arts whose office is to refine, purify, adorn, embellish and grace life is under the patronage of a muse, no god being found worthy to preside over them.

Farnham, Eliza

23.

Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth.

Sand, George

24.

The artist is a member of the leisured classes who cannot pay for his leisure.

Connolly, Cyril

25.

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

26.

The focus should be on the players. I'm here a long time. You can call me in the summer. Our seniors will be gone.

Smith, Dean

27.

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

28.

Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers.

Cather, Willa

29.

Only an artist can interpret the meaning of life.

Novalis

30.

It is not flesh and blood, but heart which makes us fathers and sons.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

31.

There is in every human heart Some not completely barren part, Where seeds of truth and love might grow, And flowers of generous virtue flow; To plant, to watch, to water there, This be our duty, be our care.

Bowring, Sir John

32.

In other countries, art and literature are left to a lot of shabby bums living in attics and feeding on booze and spaghetti, but in America the successful writer or picture-painter is indistinguishable from any other decent businessman.

Lewis, Sinclair

33.

Of all the arts in which the wise excel, nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.

Buckingham, Duke of

34.

Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul. The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of Artist.

Poe, Edgar Allan

35.

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.

36.

Art, whose honesty must work through artifice, cannot avoid cheating truth.

Riding, Laura

37.

Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.

Godard, Jean-Luc

38.

There is only one art, whose sole criterion is the power, the authenticity, the revelatory insight, the courage and suggestiveness with which it seeks its truth. Thus, from the standpoint of the work and its worth it is irrelevant to which political ideas the artist as a citizen claims allegiance, which ideas he would like to serve with his work or whether he holds any such ideas at all.

Havel, Vaclav

39.

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

Andre Gide

40.

Martyrs, my friend, have to choose between being forgotten, mocked or used. As for being understood -- never.

Camus, Albert

41.

Art is born of the observation and investigation of nature.

Cicero

42.

I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face.

Ruskin, John

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.

In our own hearts, we mold the whole world's hereafters; and in our own hearts we fashion our own gods.

Melville, Herman

45.

What I dream of is an art of balance.

Henri Matisse

46.

The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

47.

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

Bierce, Ambrose

48.

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

49.

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

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

50.

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

Mencius (Mengzi Meng-tse)