Motivational Quotes

Art

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

Best Quotes about Art

Through art we express our conception of what nature is not.

Picasso, Pablo

While I do not suggest that humanity will ever be able to dispense with its martyrs, I cannot avoid the suspicion that with a little more thought and a little less belief their number may be substantially reduced.

Haldane, John B. S.

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

Shakespeare, William

A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left.

Proust, Marcel

The difference between a man who faces death for the sake of an idea and an imitator who goes in search of martyrdom is that whilst the former expresses his idea most fully in death it is the strange feeling of bitterness which comes from failure that the latter really enjoys; the former rejoices in his victory, the latter in his suffering.

Kierkegaard, S°ren

In order for the artist to have a world to express he must first be situated in this world, oppressed or oppressing, resigned or rebellious, a man among men.

Beauvoir, Simone De

If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come.

Proverb, Chinese

All the arts we practice are apprenticeship. The big art is our life.

M. C. Richards

There is the falsely mystical view of art that assumes a kind of supernatural inspiration, a possession by universal forces unrelated to questions of power and privilege or the artist's relation to bread and blood. In this view, the channel of art can only become clogged and misdirected by the artist's concern with merely temporary and local disturbances. The song is higher than the struggle.

Rich, Adrienne

10.

The torments of martyrdom are probably most keenly felt by the bystanders.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

11.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

12.

The work of art, just like any fragment of human life considered in its deepest meaning, seems to me devoid of value if it does not offer the hardness, the rigidity, the regularity, the luster on every interior and exterior facet, of the crystal.

Breton, Andre

13.

Great persecutors are recruited among martyrs whose heads haven't been cut off.

Cioran, E. 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.

Artists must be sacrificed to their art.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

16.

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

Stephen Nachmanovitch

17.

All great art, and today all great artlessness, must appear extreme to the mass of men, as we know them today. It springs from the anguish of great souls. From the souls of men not formed, but deformed in factories whose inspiration is pelf.

Trocchi, Alexander

18.

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

19.

In art there are tears that lie too deep for thought.

Kronenberger, Louis

20.

If the Revolution has the right to destroy bridges and art monuments whenever necessary, it will stop still less from laying its hand on any tendency in art which, no matter how great its achievement in form, threatens to disintegrate the revolutionary environment or to arouse the internal forces of the Revolution, that is, the proletariat, the peasantry and the intelligentsia, to a hostile opposition to one another. Our standard is, clearly, political, imperative and intolerant.

Trotsky, Leon

21.

Feminist art is not some tiny creek running off the great river of real art. It is not some crack in an otherwise flawless stone. It is, quite spectacularly I think, art which is not based on the subjugation of one half of the species. It is art which will take the great human themes --love, death, heroism, suffering, history itself --and render them fully human. It may also, though perhaps our imaginations are so mutilated now that we are incapable even of the ambition, introduce a new theme, one as great and as rich as those others --should we call it joy?

Dworkin, Andrea

22.

Advice from a veteran trapeze performer: Throw your heart over the bars and your body will follow.

23.

Art imitates Nature in this; not to dare is to dwindle.

Updike, John

24.

Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.

Einstein, Albert

25.

Art is the objectification of feeling.

Langer, Suzanne K.

26.

If we are to change our world view, images have to change. The artist now has a very important job to do. He's not a little peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he's really needed.

Hockney, David

27.

No manager ever won no ballgames.

Anderson, Sparky

28.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

29.

Enjoyed it! One more drink and I'd have been under the host.

Parker, Dorothy

30.

There are in every generation those who shrink from the ultimate sacrifice, but there are in every generation those who make it with joy and laughter and these are the salt of the generations.

Pearse, Patrick Henry

31.

Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend.

John Singer Sargent

32.

O, had I but followed the arts!

Shakespeare, William

33.

Ads are the cave art of the twentieth century.

Mcluhan, Marshall

34.

Art is permitted to survive only if it renounces the right to be different, and integrates itself into the omnipotent realm of the profane.

Adorno, Theodor W.

35.

Art, that great undogmatized church.

Key, Ellen

36.

Technology adds nothing to art. Two thousand years ago, I could tell you a story, and at any point during the story I could stop, and ask, Now do you want the hero to be kidnapped, or not? But that would, of course, have ruined the story. Part of the experience of being entertained is sitting back and plugging into someone else's vision.

Penn Jillette

37.

It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures.

Gogh, Vincent Van

38.

Use your head and your heart, its not everything but its a start.

39.

The people who have really made history are the martyrs.

Crowley, Aleister

40.

I will greet this day with love in my heart. For this is the greatest secret of success in all ventures. Muscles can split a shield and even destroy life itself but only the unseen power of love can open the hearts of man. And until I master this act I will remain no more than a peddler in the marketplace. I will make love my greatest weapon and none on who I call can defend upon its force... my love will melt all hearts liken to the sun whose rays soften the coldest day.

Mandino, Og

41.

Doubt obscures the true vision of the heart.

42.

If that's art, I'm a Hottentot!

Truman, Harry S

43.

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

Walt Whitman

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.

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

Eliot, T. S.

46.

I am more afraid of my own heart than the Pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great Pope, Self.

Luther, Martin

47.

Contrary to popular belief an artist is never ahead of his time, but most people are far behind theirs.

Varese, Edward

48.

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

49.

Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself.

Miller, Henry

50.

Faint hearts never win fair ladies.

Proverb, Danish