Motivational Quotes

Art

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

Best Quotes about Art

Of all the arts in which the wise excel, nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.

Buckingham, Duke of

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

Great persecutors are recruited among martyrs whose heads haven't been cut off.

Cioran, E. M.

What we play is life.

Louis Armstrong

Classic art was the art of necessity: modern romantic art bears the stamp of caprice and chance.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

The art of creation is older than the art of killing.

Voznesensky, Andrei

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

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 moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you.

Wilson, Robert

10.

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

John F. Kennedy

11.

No manager ever won no ballgames.

Anderson, Sparky

12.

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

13.

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

14.

What is art but life upon the larger scale, the higher. When, graduating up in a spiral line of still expanding and ascending gyres, it pushes toward the intense significance of all things, hungry for the infinite?

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

15.

The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.

Walt Whitman

16.

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, while the heart of the fool is in the house of entertainment.

Bible

17.

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

Proverb

18.

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

Piet Mondrian

19.

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

Conrad, Joseph

20.

No human beings more dangerous than those who have suffered for a belief: the great persecutors are recruited from the martyrs not quite beheaded. Far from diminishing the appetite for power, suffering exasperates it.

Cioran, E. M.

21.

I never spend more than one hour in a gallery. That is as long as one's power of appreciation persists.

W. Somerset Maugham

22.

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

23.

Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in.

Amy Lowell

24.

In art as in love, instinct is enough.

France, Anatole

25.

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

26.

Those who write for lucre or fame are grosser than the cartel robbers, for they steal the genius of the people, which is its will to resist evil.

Dahlberg, Edward

27.

Art is skill, that is the first meaning of the word.

Gill, Eric

28.

The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person.

Blackie, Professor

29.

Art has an enemy called ignorance.

Johnson, Ben

30.

Art distills sensations and embodies it with enhanced meaning.

Barzun, Jacques

31.

Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life.

Miller, Henry

32.

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

Andre Gide

33.

All God wants of man is a peaceful heart.

Eckhart, Meister

34.

To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.

Joseph Chilton Pearce

35.

Art is the objectification of feeling.

Langer, Suzanne K.

36.

Advice from a veteran trapeze performer: Throw your heart over the bars and your body will follow.

37.

Great art is never produced for its own sake. It is too difficult to be worth the effort.

Shaw, George Bernard

38.

Art, that great undogmatized church.

Key, Ellen

39.

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

Brancusi, Constantin

40.

What better way to prove that you understand a subject than to make money out of it?

Rosenberg, Harold

41.

I do not know what the heart of a rascal may be, but I know what is in the heart of an honest man; it is horrible.

Maistre, Joseph De

42.

The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.

Connolly, Cyril

43.

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

44.

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

45.

There is nothing enduring in life for a women except what she builds in a man's heart.

Anderson, Judith

46.

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

47.

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

48.

I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need. [when asked how he managed to make his remarkable statues.]

Rodin, Auguste

49.

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

50.

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