Motivational Quotes

Art

All art is an imitation of nature.

- Seneca

Best Quotes about Art

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

For us artists there waits the joyous compromise through art with all that wounded or defeated us in daily life; in this way, not to evade destiny, as the ordinary people try to do, but to fulfil it in its true potential --the imagination.

Durrell, Lawrence

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

Art has an enemy called ignorance.

Johnson, Ben

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

William Baziotes

All paths are the same, leading nowhere. Therefore, pick a path with heart!

Castaneda, Carlos

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing: we know this in countless ways.

Pascal, Blaise

Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.

Burroughs, William S.

In any society, the artist has a responsibility. His effectiveness is certainly limited and a painter or writer cannot change the world. But they can keep an essential margin of non-conformity alive. Thanks to them the powerful can never affirm that everyone agrees with their acts. That small difference is important.

Bunuel, Luis

10.

Art is an experience, not the formulation of a problem.

Anderson, Lindsay

11.

Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.

Eugene Delacroix

12.

The less you open your heart to others, the more your heart suffers.

Chopra, Deepak

13.

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

Apollinaire, Guillaume

14.

Art, whose honesty must work through artifice, cannot avoid cheating truth.

Riding, Laura

15.

Twentieth-century art may start with nothing, but it flourishes by virtue of its belief in itself, in the possibility of control over what seems essentially uncontrollable, in the coherence of the inchoate, and in its ability to create its own values.

Alvarez, A.

16.

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

Klee, Paul

17.

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

18.

What of us lies in the hearts of others is our truest and deepest self.

Herder, Johann Gottfried Von

19.

The heart always sees before than the head can see.

Carlyle, Thomas

20.

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

Updike, John

21.

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

22.

What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

Jefferson, Thomas

23.

What is art but a way of seeing?

Berger, Thomas

24.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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

Brancusi, Constantin

29.

I am more afraid of my own heart than the Pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great Pope, Self.

Luther, Martin

30.

Thou art my glory and the exultation of y heart: thou art my hope and refuge in the day of my trouble.

Kempis, Thomas

31.

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

32.

Art is a form of catharsis.

Parker, Dorothy

33.

The final purpose of art is to intensify, even, if necessary, to exacerbate, the moral consciousness of people.

Mailer, Norman

34.

The focus should be on the players. I'm here a long time. You can call me in the summer. Our seniors will be gone.

Smith, Dean

35.

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

Varese, Edward

36.

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

37.

The highest problem of any art is to cause by appearance the illusion of a higher reality.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

38.

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

39.

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

Gutzkow

40.

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

Buckingham, Duke of

41.

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

42.

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

Thurber, James

43.

I know just how frustrating it can be when you're tired and exhausted, but you still want to draw something.

Ward Jenkins

44.

Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.

Barenboim, Daniel

45.

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.

Pablo Picasso

46.

Impartial. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy.

Bierce, Ambrose

47.

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone.

Baldwin, James

48.

Art distills sensations and embodies it with enhanced meaning.

Barzun, Jacques

49.

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

Kooning, Willem De

50.

The object of art is to give life a shape. [Midsummer Nights Dream]

Shakespeare, William