Motivational Quotes

Art

Works of art, in my opinion, are the only objects in the material universe to possess internal order, and that is why, though I don't believe that only art matters, I do believe in Art for Art's sake.

- E. M. Forster

Best Quotes about Art

Art is good when it springs from necessity. This kind of origin is the guarantee of its value; there is no other.

Cassady, Neal

To write is to become disinterested. There is a certain renunciation in art.

Camus, Albert

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

Berle, Adolf

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

Proust, Marcel

Had we never lov'd sae kindly, Had we never lov'd sae blindly, Never met -- or never parted -- we had never been broken-hearted.

Burns, Robert

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

Parker, Dorothy

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

Walt Whitman

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

Ads are the cave art of the twentieth century.

Mcluhan, Marshall

10.

If the wolf had ever come to our back door, he'd have had to bring a picnic lunch.

Anderson, Bill

11.

Art is the most passionate orgy within man's grasp.

Dubuffet, Jean

12.

We are not here to triumph by fighting, by strata gem, or by resistance, not to fight with beasts as men. We have fought the beast and have conquered. We have only to conquer now,by suffering. This is the easier victory.

Eliot, T. S.

13.

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

14.

I see little of more importance to the future of our country and of civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist. If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.

Kennedy, John F.

15.

It is all very well, when the pen flows, but then there are the dark days when imagination deserts one, and it is an effort to put anything down on paper. That little you have achieved stares at you at the end of the day, and you know the next morning you will have to scrape it down and start again.

Elizabeth Aston

16.

I believe that if it were left to artists to choose their own labels, most would choose none.

Ben Shahn

17.

Photography, fortunately, to me has not only been a profession but also a contact between people - to understand human nature and record, if possible, the best in each individual.

Nickolas Muray

18.

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

19.

Painting: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.

Ambrose Bierce

20.

Surely all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further.

Rilke, Rainer Maria

21.

The artist belongs to their work, not the work to the artist.

Novalis

22.

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

23.

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

Midler, Bette

24.

Art is either plagiarism or revolution.

Paul Gauguin

25.

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

Kael, Pauline

26.

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

27.

The way of the world is, to praise dead saints, and persecute living ones.

Howe, Nathaniel

28.

The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel.

Piet Mondrian

29.

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

30.

No sheath shall hold what finds its home in flesh.

Proverb

31.

It is not the size of a man but the size of his heart that matters.

Holyfield, Evander

32.

I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather that my spark would burn out in a brilliant blaze than be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

London, Jack

33.

You cannot kindle a fire in any other heart until it is burning in your own.

34.

The more a man cultivates the arts the less he fornicates. A more and more apparent cleavage occurs between the spirit and the brute.

Baudelaire, Charles

35.

No man dies for what he knows to be true. Men die for what they want to be true, for what some terror in their hearts tells them is not true.

Wilde, Oscar

36.

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

Sand, George

37.

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

Ward Jenkins

38.

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

Melville, Herman

39.

The idea of a mass audience was really an invention of the Industrial Revolution.

David Cronenberg

40.

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

Elizabeth Bowen

41.

There is no true expertise in the humanities without knowing all of the humanities. Art is a vast, ancient interconnected web-work, a fabricated tradition. Over-concentration on any one point is a distortion.

Paglia, Camille

42.

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

Mencius (Mengzi Meng-tse)

43.

The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart.

Franklin, Benjamin

44.

At every party there are two kinds of people -- those who want to go home and those who don't. The trouble is, they are usually married to each other.

Landers, Ann

45.

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

Frost, Robert

46.

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

Keller, Helen

47.

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

Shakespeare, William

48.

As the unity of the modern world becomes increasingly a technological rather than a social affair, the techniques of the arts provide the most valuable means of insight into the real direction of our own collective purposes.

Mcluhan, Marshall

49.

The True Artist has the planet for his pedestal; the adventurer, after years of strife, has nothing broader than his shoes.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

50.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore