Motivational Quotes

Art

Art is a reality, not a definition; inasmuch as it approaches a reality, it approaches perfection, and inasmuch as it approaches a mere definition, it is imperfect and untrue.

- Haydon, Benjamin

Best Quotes about Art

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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

Diana, Princess of Wales

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

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.

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

Nothing is less in our power than the heart, and far from commanding we are forced to obey it.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

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

Elizabeth Bowen

As for types like my own, obscurely motivated by the conviction that our existence was worthless if we didn't make a turning point of it, we were assigned to the humanities, to poetry, philosophy, painting -- the nursery games of humankind, which had to be left behind when the age of science began. The humanities would be called upon to choose a wallpaper for the crypt, as the end drew near.

Bellow, Saul

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

10.

A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world.

Edmond de Goncourt

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.

Art is so wonderfully irrational, exuberantly pointless, but necessary all the same. Pointless and yet necessary, that's hard for a puritan to understand.

Grass, Gunther

13.

Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of his heart, and that depends upon how much he has polished it. Whoever has polished it more sees more -- more unseen forms become manifest to him.

Rumi, Jalal-Uddin

14.

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

15.

It is more difficult, and it calls for higher energies of soul, to live a martyr than to die one.

Mann, Horace

16.

Charity is in the heart of man, and righteousness in the path of men. Pity the man who has lost his path and does not follow it and who has lost his heart and does not know how to recover it. When people's dogs and chicks are lost they go out and look for them and yet the people who have lost their hearts do not go out and look for them. The principle of self-cultivation consists in nothing but trying to look for the lost heart.

Mencius (Mengzi Meng-tse)

17.

Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend.

John Singer Sargent

18.

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

19.

Whether a party can have much success without a woman present I must ask others to decide, but one thing is certain, no party is any fun unless seasoned with folly.

Erasmus, Desiderius

20.

A work of art is above all an adventure of the mind.

Ionesco, Eugene

21.

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

22.

The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.

Eliot, T. S.

23.

No sheath shall hold what finds its home in flesh.

Proverb

24.

Seek not good from without: seek it within yourselves, or you will never find it.

Suttner, Bertha Von

25.

We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.

John F. Kennedy

26.

Great hearts steadily send forth the secret forces that incessantly draw great events.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

27.

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

28.

Pictures deface walls more often than they decorate them.

Wright, Frank Lloyd

29.

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

30.

The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

31.

No art can be noble which is incapable of expressing thought, and no art is capable of expressing thought which does not change.

Ruskin, John

32.

By the time a partnership dissolves, it has dissolved.

Updike, John

33.

Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line.

Conrad, Joseph

34.

Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

35.

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

Piet Mondrian

36.

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

Churchill, Winston

37.

What of us lies in the hearts of others is our truest and deepest self.

Herder, Johann Gottfried Von

38.

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

39.

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing: we know this in countless ways.

Pascal, Blaise

40.

Making social comment is an artificial place for an artist to start from. If an artist is touched by some social condition, what the artist creates will reflect that, but you can't force it.

Lewitzky, Bella

41.

Ads are the cave art of the twentieth century.

Mcluhan, Marshall

42.

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

Isak Dineson

43.

The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure

Baryshnikov, Mikhail

44.

As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft.