Motivational Quotes

Art

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

- John F. Kennedy

Best Quotes about Art

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

Art is either plagiarism or revolution.

Paul Gauguin

Look at every path closely and deliberately, then ask ourselves this crucial question: Does this path have a heart? If it does, then the path is good. If it doesn't, it is of no use.

Castaneda, Carlos

Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness of life.

W. Somerset Maugham

The people who have really made history are the martyrs.

Crowley, Aleister

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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

All art is an imitation of nature.

Seneca

10.

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

Apollinaire, Guillaume

11.

What distinguishes a great artist from a weak one is first their sensibility and tenderness; second, their imagination, and third, their industry.

Ruskin, John

12.

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

David Cronenberg

13.

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

14.

No sheath shall hold what finds its home in flesh.

Proverb

15.

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

Updike, John

16.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

17.

Art, that great undogmatized church.

Key, Ellen

18.

In art as in love, instinct is enough.

France, Anatole

19.

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

20.

It is not hard to understand modern art. If it hangs on a wall it's a painting, and if you can walk around it it's a sculpture.

21.

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

Kronenberger, Louis

22.

An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have.

Warhol, Andy

23.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

24.

I suppose no matter what I'm drawing, there will always be some sort of question in my mind about it. A work of art (even cartoon art)is never really finished; it is abandoned.

Brooke McEldowney

25.

Not the glittering weapon fights the fight, but rather the hero's heart.

Proverb

26.

The people who make art their business are mostly impostors.

Picasso, Pablo

27.

Art raises its head where creeds relax.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

28.

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

Picasso, Pablo

29.

I passionately hate the idea of being with it, I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.

Orson Welles

30.

The martyr sacrifices themselves entirely in vain. Or rather not in vain; for they make the selfish more selfish, the lazy more lazy, the narrow narrower.

Nightingale, Florence

31.

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

32.

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

Godard, Jean-Luc

33.

Bad artists always admire each other's work. They call it being large-minded and free from prejudice. But a truly great artist cannot conceive of life being shown, or beauty fashioned, under any conditions other than those he has selected.

Wilde, Oscar

34.

What distinguishes modern art from the art of other ages is criticism.

Paz, Octavio

35.

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

36.

There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted.

Matisse, Henri

37.

Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

38.

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.

39.

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

40.

There must be hearts which know the depths of our being, and swear by us, even when the whole world forsakes us.

Gutzkow

41.

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

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

42.

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

Dubuffet, Jean

43.

The heart will break, but broken live on.

Byron, Lord

44.

The artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business.

Berryman, John

45.

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

46.

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

47.

The function of art is to make that understood which in the form of argument would be incomprehensible.

Brancusi, Constantin

48.

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

Proverb, Chinese

49.

Pop artists deal with the lowly trivia of possessions and equipment that the present generation is lugging along with it on its safari into the future.

Ballard, J. G.

50.

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

Camus, Albert