Motivational Quotes

Art

Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end.

- Joyce, James

Best Quotes about Art

As the twentieth century ends, commerce and culture are coming closer together. The distinction between life and art has been eroded by fifty years of enhanced communications, ever-improving reproduction technologies and increasing wealth.

Bayley, Stephen

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

The artist vocation is to send light into the human heart.

Schumann, Robert

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

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

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

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

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

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

Brancusi, Constantin

I'm the artist formally known as Beck. I have a genius wig. When I put that wig on, then the true genius emerges. I don't have enough hair to be a genius. I think you have to have hair going everywhere.

Beck

10.

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

11.

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

Truman, Harry S

12.

Art, that great undogmatized church.

Key, Ellen

13.

Fortunately art is a community effort --a small but select community living in a spiritualized world endeavoring to interpret the wars and the solitudes of the flesh.

Ginsberg, Allen

14.

It is not in life, but in art that self-fulfillment is to be found.

Woodberry, George E.

15.

Not even the visionary or mystical experience ever lasts very long. It is for art to capture that experience, to offer it to, in the case of literature, its readers; to be, for a secular, materialist culture, some sort of replacement for what the love of god offers in the world of faith.

Rushdie, Salman

16.

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

Connolly, Cyril

17.

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

Picasso, Pablo

18.

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

Mencius (Mengzi Meng-tse)

19.

Art raises its head where creeds relax.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

20.

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

21.

Much of modern art is devoted to lowering the threshold of what is terrible. By getting us used to what, formerly, we could not bear to see or hear, because it was too shocking, painful, or embarrassing, art changes morals.

Sontag, Susan

22.

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

23.

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

24.

The powerful play goes on -- and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

25.

I like people and I like them to like me, but I wear my heart where God put it -- on the inside.

26.

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

27.

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

Piet Mondrian

28.

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

29.

Only an artist can interpret the meaning of life.

Novalis

30.

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

Varese, Edward

31.

Without poets, without artists, men would soon weary of nature's monotony. The sublime idea men have of the universe would collapse with dizzying speed. The order which we find in nature, and which is only an effect of art, would at once vanish. Everything would break up in chaos. There would be no seasons, no civilization, no thought, no humanity; even life would give way, and the impotent void would reign everywhere.

Apollinaire, Guillaume

32.

Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art.

Tynan, Kenneth

33.

Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.

G. K. Chesterton

34.

Art is a private thing, the artist makes it for himself; a comprehensible work is the product of a journalist. We need works that are strong, straight, precise, and forever beyond understanding.

Tzara, Tristan

35.

Art distills sensations and embodies it with enhanced meaning.

Barzun, Jacques

36.

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

Churchill, Winston

37.

Where are you searching for me, friend? Look! Here am I right within you. Not in temple, nor in mosque, not in Kaaba nor Kailas, but here right within you am I.

Kabir

38.

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

Frost, Robert

39.

Art for art's sake is a philosophy of the well-fed.

Yu Cao

40.

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

41.

The head learns new things, but the heart forever practices old experiences.

Beecher, Henry Ward

42.

What ever purifies the heart also fortifies it.

Blair, Hugh

43.

All God wants of man is a peaceful heart.

Eckhart, Meister

44.

Art is the objectification of feeling.

Langer, Suzanne K.

45.

The people who make art their business are mostly impostors.

Picasso, Pablo

46.

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

47.

Art -- the one achievement of Man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised.

Thurber, James

48.

If you were in a burning house and there was a cat and a Rembrandt, what would you save? The cat...you would save the cat, because the cat is alive. The art is dead. It's just paint on a canvas, ink on a page. To live for art is to deny life. It's just to destroy life.

Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider

49.

The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist.

Jacob, Max

50.

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

Melville, Herman