Motivational Quotes

Art

If your heart were sincere and upright, every creature would be unto you a looking-glass of life and a book of holy doctrine.

- Kempis, Thomas

Best Quotes about Art

It is the cause, not the death that makes the martyr.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

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

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

Some people carry their heart in their head and some carry their head in their heart. The trick is to keep them apart yet working together.

Hare, David

The brain can be easy to buy, but the heart never comes to market.

Lowell, James Russell

Within your heart, keep one still, secret spot where dreams may go.

Driscoll, Louise

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

Brancusi, Constantin

Art distills sensations and embodies it with enhanced meaning.

Barzun, Jacques

10.

The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.

Pope, Alexander

11.

A frenzied passion for art is a canker that devours everything else.

Baudelaire, Charles

12.

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

Eliot, T. S.

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

16.

Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves they have a better idea.

Ciardi, John

17.

Only an artist can interpret the meaning of life.

Novalis

18.

It's not your painting anymore. It stopped being your painting the moment that you finished it.

Jeff Melvoin

19.

Repetition is the death of art.

Robin Green

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

Isak Dineson

23.

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

24.

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

Ben Shahn

25.

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

Melville, Herman

26.

No sheath shall hold what finds its home in flesh.

Proverb

27.

On with the dance! let joy be unconfined; no sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet to chase the glowing hours with flying feet.

Gordon, George

28.

Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life.

Miller, Henry

29.

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

30.

What I dream of is an art of balance.

Henri Matisse

31.

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

32.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

33.

Humanity is the rich effluvium, it is the waste and the manure and the soil, and from it grows the tree of the arts.

Pound, Ezra

34.

I don't believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there's one thing that's dangerous for an artist, it's precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it.

Federico Fellini

35.

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

36.

Like other parties of the kind, it was first silent, then talky, then argumentative, then disputatious, then unintelligible, then altogether, then inarticulate, and then drunk. When we had reached the last step of this glorious ladder, it was difficult to get down again without stumbling.

Byron, Lord

37.

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

Woodberry, George E.

38.

Any artist should be grateful for a na?ve grace which puts him beyond the need to reason elaborately.

Bellow, Saul

39.

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

Anderson, Bill

40.

It is time for us all to stand and cheer for the doer, the achiever -- the one who recognizes the challenges and does something about it.

Lombardi, Vince

41.

Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before.

Edith Wharton

42.

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

Ambrose Bierce

43.

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

Frost, Robert

44.

When I am finishing a picture I hold some God-made object up to it -- a rock, a flower, the branch of a tree or my hand -- as a kind of final test. If the painting stands up beside a thing man cannot make, the painting is authentic. If there's a clash between the two, it is bad art.

Chagall, Marc

45.

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

46.

Art at its most significant is a distant early warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen.

Mcluhan, Marshall

47.

An artist is forced by others to paint out of his own free will.

Kooning, Willem De

48.

Doubt obscures the true vision of the heart.

49.

An artist is a creature driven by demons. He doesn't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why.

Faulkner, William