Motivational Quotes

Art

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

Best Quotes about Art

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

Truman, Harry S

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.

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

I passionately hate the idea of being with it, I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.

Orson Welles

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

Kempis, Thomas

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

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

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

Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth.

Sand, George

10.

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

11.

It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures.

Gogh, Vincent Van

12.

One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum, in which men steal through existence, like sluggish waters through a marsh, without either honor or observation.

Scott, Sir Walter

13.

Balance is the enemy of art.

Eyre, Richard

14.

As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft.

Mencken, H. L.

15.

Painting is an attempt to come to terms with life. There are as many solutions as there are human beings.

George Tooker

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

Pascal, Blaise

22.

As the unity of the modern world becomes increasingly a technological rather than a social affair, the techniques of the arts provide the most valuable means of insight into the real direction of our own collective purposes.

Mcluhan, Marshall

23.

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

24.

The vitality of a new movement in Art must be gauged by the fury it arouses.

Smith, Logan Pearsall

25.

You cannot kindle a fire in any other heart until it is burning in your own.

26.

It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.

Shaw, George Bernard

27.

Photography, fortunately, to me has not only been a profession but also a contact between people - to understand human nature and record, if possible, the best in each individual.

Nickolas Muray

28.

Enjoyed it! One more drink and I'd have been under the host.

Parker, Dorothy

29.

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

Baudelaire, Charles

30.

The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through.

Jackson Pollock

31.

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

32.

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

Ciardi, John

33.

I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.

Roosevelt, Theodore

34.

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

Burroughs, William S.

35.

There is in every human heart Some not completely barren part, Where seeds of truth and love might grow, And flowers of generous virtue flow; To plant, to watch, to water there, This be our duty, be our care.

Bowring, Sir John

36.

Two things are bad for the heart -- running up stairs and running down people.

Baruch, Bernard M.

37.

No sheath shall hold what finds its home in flesh.

Proverb

38.

I have joined my heart to thee: all that exists are thou. O Lord, beloved of my heart, thou art the home of all; where indeed is the heart in which thou dost not dwell?

Jafar

39.

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

Conrad, Joseph

40.

But the one thing you should. not do is to suppose that when something is wrong with the arts, it is wrong with the arts ONLY.

Pound, Ezra

41.

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

Yu Cao

42.

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

43.

Most works of art, like most wines, ought to be consumed in the district of their fabrication.

West, Rebecca

44.

Pop artists deal with the lowly trivia of possessions and equipment that the present generation is lugging along with it on its safari into the future.

Ballard, J. G.

45.

The heart is the best reflective thinker.

Phillips, Wendell

46.

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

Voznesensky, Andrei

47.

This grandiose tragedy that we call modern art.

Dali, Salvador

48.

It is more difficult, and it calls for higher energies of soul, to live a martyr than to die one.