Motivational Quotes

Art

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

- Kooning, Willem De

Best Quotes about Art

Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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

Dubuffet, Jean

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

Diana, Princess of Wales

Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments. An artist recreates those aspects of reality which represent his fundamental view of man's nature.

Rand, Ayn

As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft.

Mencken, H. L.

In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.

Fischer, Ernst

Faint hearts never win fair ladies.

Proverb, Danish

Art is a form of catharsis.

Parker, Dorothy

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

Howe, Nathaniel

10.

If the heart wanders or is distracted, bring it back to the point quite gently and replace it tenderly in its Master's presence. And even if you did nothing during the whole ofyour hour but bring your heart back and place it again in Our Lord's presence, though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well employed.

Francis De Sales, St.

11.

If I didn't start painting, I would have raised chickens.

Moses, Grandma

12.

The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract.

Klee, Paul

13.

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

14.

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

Warhol, Andy

15.

Don't waste time trying to break a man's heart; be satisfied if you can just manage to chip it in a brand new place.

Rowland, Helen

16.

Each painting has its own way of evolving...When the painting is finished, the subject reaveals itself.

William Baziotes

17.

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

18.

What is art but a way of seeing?

Berger, Thomas

19.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

20.

There are in every generation those who shrink from the ultimate sacrifice, but there are in every generation those who make it with joy and laughter and these are the salt of the generations.

Pearse, Patrick Henry

21.

Martyrdom does not end something, it only a beginning.

Gandhi, Indira

22.

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

23.

Art raises its head where creeds relax.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

24.

Art has an enemy called ignorance.

Johnson, Ben

25.

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

Tynan, Kenneth

26.

Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.

Einstein, Albert

27.

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

28.

Good art however immoral is wholly a thing of virtue. Good art can NOT be immoral. By good art I mean art that bears true witness, I mean the art that is most precise.

Pound, Ezra

29.

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.

30.

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

Churchill, Winston

31.

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

Camus, Albert

32.

Progressive art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately, it can propel people toward social emancipation.

Davis, Angela Y.

33.

There is the falsely mystical view of art that assumes a kind of supernatural inspiration, a possession by universal forces unrelated to questions of power and privilege or the artist's relation to bread and blood. In this view, the channel of art can only become clogged and misdirected by the artist's concern with merely temporary and local disturbances. The song is higher than the struggle.

Rich, Adrienne

34.

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

35.

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

Baryshnikov, Mikhail

36.

I say that good painters imitated nature; but that bad ones vomited it.

Miguel de Cervantes

37.

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

38.

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

Proust, Marcel

39.

Art the end result of perception, wisdom, intelligence, discipline, hard work, passion, luck, accident, and coincidence.

40.

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

Schumann, Robert

41.

Art is the signature of civilizations.

Sills, Beverly

42.

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

Ben Shahn

43.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

44.

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

45.

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.

46.

No sheath shall hold what finds its home in flesh.

Proverb

47.

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

48.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

49.

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

50.

If we keep an open mind, too much is likely to fall into it.

Barney, Natalie Clifford