| Citat |
Sagt av |
| Bara med konst kan man uttrycka det man inte begriper | Henrik Tikkanen (1924-1984) |
| Bara när konstnären inte längre vet vad han gör, gör konstnären bra saker. | Edgar Degas (1834-1917) |
| Cirkus är den ärligaste av konstarterna - där försöker man inte dölja sågspånen. | Carl Hammarén (1922-1990) |
| De flesta kvinnor är inte så unga som de är målade. | Max Beerbohm (1872-1956) |
| Den som gifter sig med konsten får kritikerna till svärmor. | Edvard Munch (1863-1944) |
| Det farligaste som finns för en konstnär är beröm. | Edvard Munch (1863-1944) |
| Det finns inget nytt i konsten utom talang. | Anton Tjechov (1860-1904) |
| Det svåra är inte att göra mästerverk, utan att försätta sig i det tillstånd då man gör ett. | Elmer Diktonius (1896-1961) |
| Det är ingen synvilla, det ser bara ut som en sådan. | Elmer Diktonius (1896-1961) |
| Det är inte det nya i konstverken som hindrar förståelsen, utan det gamla i människorna. | Elmer Diktonius (1896-1961) |
| Det är konstens ide att folk inte ska få det de gillar. | Poul Henningsen (1894-1967) |
| Det är med konst som med poker, de stora pengarna ligger i falskt spel. | Hansrüdi Hess |
| Det är med konst som med poker: de stora pengarna ligger i bluffen. | Hansrüdi Hess |
| Det är proffsen som gör, så att rosorna dör, ge mig hellre en glad amatör! | Tage Danielsson (1928-1985) |
| Det är själva meningen med konsten, att folk inte ska få vad de vill ha. | Poul Henningsen (1894-1967) |
| Dåliga konstnärer beundrar alltid varandras verk. | Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) |
| En bild ljuger mer än tusen ord | Gubbstrutten |
| En konstnär bör inte gifta sig. Blir äktenskapet olyckligt utvecklas visserligen talangen, men blir äktenskapet lyckligt så förstörs den helt. | Ivan Turgenjev (1818-1883) |
| En konstnär som uppställer teorier om sitt verk är inte längre konstnär, han är kritiker. | Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) |
| En konstnär är ingenting utan gåvan, men gåvan är ingenting utan arbete. | Émile Zola (1840-1902) |
| En stor konstnär är antingen före eller efter sin tid. | George Moore (1873-1958) |
| Endast de med rena hjärtan kan göra en god soppa. | Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) |
| Endast en auktionsutropare kan opartiskt och i lika hög grad beundra alla konstinriktningar. | Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) |
| Folk som inte har något med kunst att göra borde inte ha något med konst att göra. Väl? | Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (1906-1966) |
| Folk säger att allt jag målar liknar van Gogh. Varför ska alla hålla på och imitera mig hela tiden? | Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) |
| Gör-det-självmetoden för att skulptera en elefant: hitta ett enormt stenblock, och hugg sedan bit för bit bort det som inte liknar elefant. | Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) |
| Herr Larssons fru fick sitt porträtt i olja. Han råkade tappa hennes fotografi i flottyrkokaren. | Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) |
| Ingen stor konstnär ser någonsin tingen som de verkligen är. Gjorde han det skulle han upphöra att vara konstnär. | Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) |
| Jag har alltid undrat över de här killarna som målar tavlor med fartyg. Alltid handlar det om skeppsbrott och elände. De måste ha en jävla otur med vädret. | Birgitte Bardot (1934-) |
| Jag har sysslat lite med abstrakt konst på senaste tiden. Väldigt abstrakt: inga penslar, ingen färg, ingen duk. Jag har tänkt på den. | Birgitte Bardot (1934-) |
| Jag ska be och få Mona Leasa den här tavlan. | Birgitte Bardot (1934-) |
| Jag är inte skådespelare. Jag är ett fenomen. | Birgitte Bardot (1934-) |
| Konst har en fiende som heter ignorans. | Ben Johnson (1961-) |
| Konst liksom moral består i att linjerna måste dras någonstans. | Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) |
| Konst ska göra något annat än att sitta på sin bak i museet. | Claes Oldenburg (1929-) |
| Konst är att skapa något av ingenting och sedan sälja det. | Frank Zappa (1940-1993) |
| Konst är det som man inte kan. Om man kunde det vore det ingen konst. | Robert Storm Petersen (1882-1949) |
| Konst är en slags sjukdom. | Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) |
| Konst är ett ja till tillvaron. | Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) |
| Konst är ett samarbete mellan Gud och en konstnär, ju mindre konstnären gör, desto bättre. | Jean Paul (1763-1825) |
| Konst är inte livets bröd men väl dess vin. | Jean Paul (1763-1825) |
| Konst är någonting man inte kan, för när man kan det är det ingen konst. | Norskt ordspråk |
| Konsten med ledarskap är att kunna säga nej, inte säga ja. Det är väldigt lätt att säga ja. | Tony Blair (1953-) |
| Konsten är en lögn som får oss att inse sanningen. | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| Konstens mål är avbild, inte bild. | Georg Pauli (1855-1935) |
| Konstens uppgift är att göra världen uthärdlig. | William Saroyan (1908-1981) |
| Konstnären har egentligen bara ett problem - han själv. | Sigmund Graff |
| Konstnären ser inte saker och ting som de är utan som han är. | Scott Adams (1957-) |
| Konstnärer brukar tillåtas att göra en tavla då och då. | Scott Adams (1957-) |
| Konstnärsliv: man ritar på dagarna och suddar på nätterna. | Scott Adams (1957-) |
| Kreativitet är att tillåta dig själv att göra misstag. Konst är att veta vilka man ska behålla. | Scott Adams (1957-) |
| Låt varje man utöva den konst han känner. | Aristofanes (450 f.Kr.-388 f.Kr.) |
| Man ska aldrig låta sig förtryckas av några av allmänhetens krav - det är den säkraste vägen till konstnärlig impotens. | Lasse Ellegaard |
| Min kärlek till konsten var äkta tills jag upptäckte att tavlorna jag hade köpt inte var det. | Henrik Tikkanen (1924-1984) |
| Moderna konstverk är som kvinnor. Man har ingen glädje av dem om man försöker förstå dem. | Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) |
| Målerier har sitt eget liv, som kommer från målarens själ. | Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) |
| Många av dem som kallar sig för konstnärer är i själva verket konsthandlare. Det är bara det att de kan åstadkomma tavlorna själva. | Samuel Butler (1835-1902) |
| Något av det viktigaste i all konst: att överlåta en anständig del åt läsaren, betraktaren, den medverkande. Det ska finnas en tom plats vid det dukade bordet. Den är hans. | Gunnar Ekelöf |
| Om du inte vet vad det är så är det konst. | Elmer Diktonius (1896-1961) |
| Om konstens mening vore att bedöva, att få oss att glömma livet, så vore ett hammarslag i skallen den enklaste och bästa konsten. | Elmer Diktonius (1896-1961) |
| På en vernissage har man, som bekant, föga möjlighet att beskåda de utställda konstverken. En vernissage är helt enkelt ett cocktailparty. Men i regel tyvärr utan cocktails. | Carl Hammarén (1922-1990) |
| På vernissagen: - Det förefaller mig som damen har för tjock vänsterarm. - Det är ingen dam, det är en oljemålning. | Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (1906-1966) |
| Ska konsten vara begriplig? Ja, men bara för adressaterna. | Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (1906-1966) |
| Skillnaden mellan konst och hantverk är att man måste vara sakkunnig för att bedöma hantverket. | Robert Storm Petersen (1882-1949) |
| Statens intresse för konsten är långt farligare än dess likgiltighet. | Graham Greene (1904-1991) |
| Stenbocksstatyn i Helsingborg restes av stenbockens vännkrets. | Elmer Diktonius (1896-1961) |
| Stor konst ryms ofta i västfickan. | Elmer Diktonius (1896-1961) |
| Vad gör vi som inte är genier på de konstnärliga områdena? Jobbar på ändå. Samt hoppas på att någon ska överskatta oss. | Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) |
| Vad konsten i själva verket speglar är icke livet utan betraktaren. | Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) |
| Varje gång jag målar ett porträtt förlorar jag en vän. | Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) |
| Varje konstnär var amatör i början. | Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) |
| Vi får aldrig glömma att konsten inte är en form av propaganda; den är en form av sanningen. | John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) |
| At skabe er at leve to gange. | Albert Camus (1913-1960) |
| Kunstneren og håndværkeren arbejder begge på det samme strålende værk. De er fælles om at opmuntre og trøste menneskene. | Anatole France (1844-1924) |
| Al kunst er oprør mod menneskets skæbne. | André Malraux (1901-1976) |
| Kunstværker inddeler jeg i to kategorier: dem, som jeg kan lide, og dem, som jeg ikke kan lide. Jeg kender ikke andre kriterier. | Anton Checkov |
| Al kunst rummer ekshibitionisme - men ekshibitionisme er ikke kunst | Arthur Koestler (1905-1938) |
| Jeg spiller mig selv. Jeg er ikke god nok til at spille andre. Det er derfor jeg godt kan lide enkle, vilde sexede roller. | Birgitte Bardot (1934-) |
| Kunst er ikke et spørgsmål om, hvad man selv kan se, men hvad man kan få andre til at se. | Edgar Degas (1834-1917) |
| Kunst består af at lave noget ud af ingenting - og så sælge det. | Frank Zappa (1940-1993) |
| Kunst er stort set et ja til tilværelsen. | Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) |
| Kunst består - som moral - i at trække en linie et sted. | Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) |
| Det vigtigste for en kunstner er kunsten at kunne snige sig ind under andre menneskers hud. | Georges Simenon (1903-) |
| Kunst er ikke et studium af den positive virkelighed, det er en søgen efter den ideelle sandhed. | George Sand (1804-1876) |
| Han lyver også, når det ikke tjener hans eget formål. Det er den sande og store kunstners kendetegn. | Gore Vidal (1948-) |
| Det danske teater har altid for meget manglet disciplin | Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) |
| Kunstsansen er evnen til at opfatte det uendelige. | H.C. Ørsted |
| Min kærlighed til kunsten var ægte, indtil jeg opdagede, at malerierne, jeg havde købt, ikke var det. | Henrik Tikkanen (1924-1984) |
| Man nævner tit fem, seks mesterværker i kunsten, der blev til, fordi der måtte skaffes brød. Ingen har talt om dem, der IKKE blev til fordi brødet skulle skaffes. | Herman Bang |
| Den, der gifter sig med kunsten, får kritikken som svigermor. | Hildegard Knef (1925-2002) |
| Hvis du kunne sige det med ord, var der ingen grund til at male. | Edward Hopper (1882-1967) |
| Dét at optræde, det er at kunne gå almindeligt, selv om man har skidt i bukserne. | Jacob Haugaard |
| Formålet med kunsten er at blotlægge de spørgsmål, som har været skjult af svarene. | James Arthur Baldwin (1924-1987) |
| Den, som indtager forreste plads, spiller sjældent hovedrollen | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) |
| Den, som vil noget stort, må tage sig sammen; først i begræsningen viser mesteren sig, og kun loven kan give os frihed | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) |
| I kunsten er det bedste godt nok | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) |
| Kunst og videnskab tilhører hele verden, og for dem forsvinder de nationale grænser. | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) |
| Man burde hver dag høre lidt musik, læse et godt digt, betragte et smukt maleri og, hvis det er muligt, sige et par fornuftige ord. | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) |
| Livet imiterer ikke kunsten; livet er kunsten. | John Lennon (1940-1980) |
| Kunst er i sig selv filosofi, som er gjort konkret. | Joseph Kosuth |
| Succes er i virkeligheden en dødsdom.. | Oluf Høst |
| Dårlige kunstnere beundrer altid hinandens værker. | Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) |
| Abstrakt kunst findes ikke, du må altid begynde med noget | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| Avantgarden bliver hyppigere beskudt bagfra end forfra. | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| Det tager lang tid at blive ung | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| Et billede lever kun for den, der betragter det. | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| Hvis man præcis ved, hvad man skal gøre, hvorfor så gøre det? | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| Kunsten er en løgn, som får os til at se sandheden | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| Når jeg er færdig med at male, maler jeg igen for at slappe af | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| Smag er kreativitetens fjende | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| Som barn er enhver kunstner. Vanskeligheden ligger i at forblive det som voksen. | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| Kunst er for alle; det er bare ikke alle, der ved det. | Poul Borum |
| Der er ikke noget der er vigtigere end kunst og kærlighed. | Poul Schlüter |
| Kunsten er en jaloux elskerinde. | Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) |
| Jeg tror, jeg kunne slippe godt fra at udstille et penalhus og kalde det kunst. Folk ved ikke, en farve er rød, før de får besked på det | Robert Jacobsen |
| Mange af dem, som kalder sig kunstnere, er i virkeligheden kunsthandlere. Der er kun den forskel, at de selv kan lave malerierne. | Samuel Butler (1835-1902) |
| En snob er en mand, der uden at fortrække en mine sætter sig på et pindsvin, blot fordi man har sagt ham, at det er en stol tegnet af Picasso. | Stirling Moss (1929-) |
| Betegnelsen kunst strækker sig lige fra Michel Angelo til et spillekort, som forvandles til en kanin. | Robert Storm Petersen (1882-1949) |
| Den største Skuespilkunst oplever man altid udenfor Scenen. | Robert Storm Petersen (1882-1949) |
| Kritikken er kunstens svigermor | Robert Storm Petersen (1882-1949) |
| Kunst er det, man ikke kan. Hvis man kunne, var det jo ingen kunst | Robert Storm Petersen (1882-1949) |
| Maleriet er ligegyldigt - det er Navnet, jeg køber. - Saa er det kedeligt, han har haft al den Ulejlighed! | Robert Storm Petersen (1882-1949) |
| Når kunst kræver en forklaring, er der altid noget muggent ved den. | Robert Storm Petersen (1882-1949) |
| Et stykke skal give dig noget at tænke på. Når jeg ser en forestilling og forstår den allerede første gang, så ved jeg, at den ikke er særlig meget bevendt | T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) |
| All god kunst er en indiskretion. | Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) |
| Kunstens geværløb er skævt. Sigter man lidt ved siden af, har man en chance for at ramme plet. | Thorkild Hansen |
| Lad os beundre de gamle mestre, ikke imitere dem | Victor Hugo (1802-1885) |
| Kunst er menneske plus natur.. | Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) |
| Et kunstværk har overhovedet ingen betydning for samfundet. Det er kun vigtigt for den enkelte. | Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) |
| Jeg har teater i blodet. Min grandonkel Fortescue spillede bækken i brandmændenes orkester | W. C. Fields (1880-1946) |
| Min fætter giftede sig med en tatoveret dame, udelukkende for kunstens skyld | W. C. Fields (1880-1946) |
| Teaching is an instinctual art, mindful of potential, craving of realizations, a pausing, seamless process. | A. Bartlett Giamatti (1938-1989) |
| Art is... a question mark in the minds of those who want to know what's happening. | Aaron Howard |
| A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. | Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) |
| There is no such thing as modern art. There is art,and there is advertising. | Albert Sterner |
| So-called art restoration is at least as tricky as brain surgery. Most pictures expire under scalpel and sponge. | Alexander Eliot |
| Democracy is the art of thinking independently together | Alexander Meiklejohn |
| Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure. | Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) |
| Abstract art: a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered | Al Capp (1909-1979) |
| 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 (1874-1925) |
| Art is an effort to create, beside the real world, a more human world | André Maurois (1885-1967) |
| All art requires courage. | Anne Tucker |
| The secret of art is love. | Antoine Bourdelle (1861-1929) |
| The artist must create a spark before he can make a fire and before art is born, the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his own creation. | Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) |
| To any artist, worthy of the name, all in nature is beautiful, because his eyes, fearlessly accepting all exterior truth, read there, as in an open book, all the inner truth. | Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) |
| Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit of which Nature herself is animated. | Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) |
| What garlic is to food, insanity is to art. | Augustus Saint-Gaudens |
| I'm the artist formally known as Beck. I have a genius wig. When I put that wig on, then the true genius emerges. I don't have enough hair to be a genius. I think you have to have hair going everywhere. | Beck Hansen |
| Art knows no limit, and the artists will never achieve perfection. | Bente Borsum |
| The rule in the art world is: you cater to the masses or you kowtow to the elite; you can't have both | Ben Hecht (1893-1964) |
| All of the arts, poetry, music, ritual, the visible arts, the theater, must singly and together create the most comprehensive art of all, a humanized society, and its masterpiece, free man | Bernard Berenson (1865-1959) |
| The little dissatisfaction which every artist feels at the completion of a work forms the germ of a new work | Berthold Auerbach (1812-1882) |
| Art is the signature of civilizations. | Beverly Sills (1929-) |
| Guido the plumber and Michelangelo obtained their marble from the same quarry, but what each saw in the marble made the difference between a nobleman's sink and a brilliant sculpture. | Bob Kall |
| Art is my cousin Art | Bonnie Bolster |
| Art has two constant, two unending concerns: It always meditates on death and thus always creates life. All great, genuine art resembles and continues the Revelation of St John. | Boris L. Pasternak (1890-1960) |
| No one ever attains success by simply doing what is required of him | Charles Kendall Adams |
| When one buys some of my artwork I hope it is because they will wish to learn from it and not because they think it will match their drapes! | Christian Cardell Corbet |
| Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, everyday, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity. | Christopher Morley (1890-1957) |
| I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum. | Claes Oldenburg (1929-) |
| Art is I; science is we | Claude Bernard |
| People discuss my art and pretend to understand as if it were necessary to understand, when it's simply necessary to love. | Claude Monet (1840-1926) |
| Art is an absolute mistress; she will not be coquetted with or slighted; she requires the most entire self-devotion, and she repays with grand triumphs. | Cyril Connolly (1903-1974) |
| There are three forms of visual art: Painting is art to look at, sculpture is art you can walk around, and architecture is art you can walk through | Dan Rice |
| It's time to put out an All Points Bulletin on Sylvester Stallone. Not for artistic crimes but for so grossly abusing his license to pander. | David Elliott |
| The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist. | David Hockney (1937-) |
| It basically was an art before. We're just starting to scratch it into a science. | Dennis Conner |
| The oldest of the arts and the youngest of the professions. | Derek Bok (1930-) |
| A creative artist works on his next composition because he was not satisfied with his previous one. | Dimitri Shostakovich |
| Most artists are surrealists.. always dreaming something and then they paint it. | Dong Kingman |
| Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday. | Donald Marquis (1878-1937) |
| To make us feel small in the right way is a function of art; men can only make us feel small in the wrong way. | E. M. Forster (1879-1970) |
| An artist is never ahead of his time but most people are far behind theirs. | Edgard Varese (1883-1965) |
| People say conversation is a lost art; how often I have wished it were. | Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965) |
| Art is Nature made by Man To Man the interpreter of God | Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton |
| The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference. | Elie Wiesel (1928-) |
| The art of life is to live in the present moment, and to make that moment as perfect as we can by the realization that we are the instruments and expression of God Himself. | Emmet Fox (1886-1951) |
| The artist is not a different kind of person, but every person is a different kind of artist | Eric Gill (1882-1940) |
| 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. | Ernst Fischer (1918-) |
| I don't want life to imitate art. I want life to be art. | Ernst Fischer (1918-) |
| Man will begin to recover the moment he takes art as seriously as physics, chemistry or money | Ernst Levy (1895-) |
| The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing. | Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) |
| A work of art is above all an adventure of the mind | Eugène Ionesco (1909-1994) |
| Art must take reality by surprise. | F. Sagan |
| Art depends on luck and talent. | Francis Ford Coppola (1939-) |
| Art is made to disturb. Science reassures. | Georges Braque (1882-1963) |
| Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers - and never succeeding | Gian Carlo Menotti (1911-) |
| I adore art...when I am alone with my notes, my heart pounds and the tears stream from my eyes, and my emotion and my joys are too much to bear. | Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) |
| Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over. | Gloria Naylor (1950-) |
| Art is accusation, expression, passion. Art is a fight to the finish between black charcoal and white paper. | Gunter Grass (1927-) |
| Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything. | Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) |
| Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it is no mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself. | Henry Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) |
| The arts are an even better barometer of what is happening in our world than the stock market or the debates in congress. | Hendrik Willem Van Loon |
| Art is skill, that is the first meaning of the word. | Henry Geldzahler |
| Art is man's expression of his joy in labor. | Henry Kissinger (1923-) |
| The artist does not tinker with the universe, he recreates it out of his own experience and understanding of life. | Henry Miller (1891-1980) |
| Journalism is the art of collecting varying kinds of information (commonly called "news") which a few people possess and of transmitting it to a much larger number of people who are supposed to desire to share it. | Henry R. Luce (1898-1967) |
| Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. | Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) |
| When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college - that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared at me, incredulous, and said, "You mean they forget?" | Howard Ikemoto |
| The art galleries of Paris contain the finest collection of frames I ever saw. | Sir Humphrey Davy (1778-1829) |
| The greatness of art is not to find what is common but what is unique | Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991) |
| He was one of those inexplicable gifts of nature, an artist who leaps over boundaries, changes our nervous systems, creates a new language, transmits new kinds of joy to our startled senses and spirits. | Jack Kroll |
| A wife, a lover, can perhaps never see what the artist sees They rarely ever do. Perhaps a really mediocre artist has more chance of success. | Jacob Epstein (1880-) |
| All my life as an artist I have asked myself: What pushes me continually to make sculpture? I have found the answer. art is an action against death. It is a denial of death. | Jacques Lipchitz (1891-) |
| Travel, which was once either a necessity or an adventure, has become very largely a commodity, and from all sides we are persuaded into thinking that it is a social requirement, too. | Jan Morris (1926-) |
| The art of a people is a true mirror of their minds | Jawaharlal Nehru (om Indira Gandhi) (1889-1964) |
| Art is not a pastime but a priesthood | Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) |
| We owe something to extravagance, for thrift and adventure seldom go hand in hand. | Jennie Jerome Churchill (1854-1921) |
| I enjoy art anyone can afford. The gallery is the sky and the painter - the lord. | Joe Kregor |
| The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art.. if you are scared to go to the brink, you are lost. | John Foster Dulles (1888-1959) |
| Art is unquestionably one of the purest and highest elements in human happiness. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life. | John Lubbock, Sr. |
| Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together. | John Ruskin (1819-1900) |
| What makes people the world over stand in line for Van Gogh is not that they will see beautiful pictures [but] that in an indefinable way they will come away feeling better human beings. And that is exactly what Van Gogh hoped for. | John Russell (1921-1991) |
| Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others. | Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) |
| Music is the art of thinking with sounds. | Jules Combarieu |
| Artists can color the sky red because they know it's blue. Those of us who aren't artists must color things the way they really are or people might think we're stupid. | Jules Feiffer (1929-) |
| Art is a private thing, the artist makes it for himself; a comprehensible work is the product of a journalist. We need works that are strong, straight, precise, and forever beyond understanding. | Kenneth Tynan (1927-1980) |
| Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art | Konstantin Stanislavsky (1863-1938) |
| Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity. | Lester Bangs (1948-1982) |
| Art is a fruit that grows in man, like a fruit on a plant, or a child in its mother's womb. | Lillian Smith (1897-1966) |
| Art is like a border of flowers along the course of civilization. | Lincoln Steffens |
| It is now life and not art that requires the willing suspension of disbelief | Lionel Trilling (1905-1975) |
| It is frequently the tragedy of the great artist, as it is of the great scientist, that he frightens the ordinary man. | Loren Eiseley (1907-1977) |
| I photograph the things that I do not wish to paint, the things which already have an existence. | Man Ray (1890-1976) |
| Great art picks up where nature ends. | Marc Chagall (1887-1985) |
| Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike. | Dame Margot Fonteyn (1919-1991) |
| Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads. | Marianne Moore (1887-1972) |
| I don't need the money, dear. I work for art. | Maria Callas (1923-1977) |
| The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery. | Mark van Doren (1894-1972) |
| Only in art will the lion lie down with the lamb, and the rose grow without thorn | Martin Amis (1949-) |
| Good art is art that allows you to enter it from a variety of angles and to emerge with a variety of views. | Mary Schmich |
| Strong and convincing art has never arisen from theories | Mary Wigman |
| To choose art means to turn one's back on the world, or at least on certain of its distractions. | Melvin Maddocks |
| Art is what's left over after you've defined everything else | Michael Vitale |
| A photographer without a magazine behind him is like a farmer without fields. | Norman Parkinson (1913-) |
| While I recognize the necessity for a basis of observed reality... true art lies in a reality that is felt. | Odilon Redon (1840-1916) |
| 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 (1915-1985) |
| A good artist should be isolated. If he isn't isolated, something is wrong. | Orson Welles (1915-1985) |
| We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth, at least the truth that is given to us to understand. | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| Everyone wants to understand painting. Why is there no attempt to understand the song of the birds? | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth. | Patti Smith (1946-) |
| Trash has given us an appetite for art | Pauline Kael (1919-2001) |
| The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art's audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public. | Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) |
| Art is either a plagiarist or a revolutionist | Paul Gwinn |
| The artist's world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep. | Paul Strand (1890-1976) |
| Works of art are all that survive of incredibly gifted people. | Peter C. Wilson |
| The work of art must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself and carry you away. It is the means by which the artist conveys his passion. It is the current which he puts forth, which sweeps you along in his passion | Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) |
| Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all the tricks and has nothing to say | Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) |
| Art imitates Nature, and necessity is the mother of invention | Richard Franck |
| The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize. | Robert Hughes (1938-) |
| Remember the great adversity of art or anything else is a hurried life. | Robert James Waller (1939-) |
| Art is much less important than life, but what a poor life without it. | Robert Motherwell (1915-1991) |
| Wherever art appears, life disappears. | Robert Motherwell (1915-1991) |
| Ideas aren't real estate, they grow collectively and that knocks out the egotistical loneliness that generally infects art. | Robert Redford (1937-) |
| Vermont's a place where barns come painted / Red as a strong man's heart, Where stout carts and stout boys in freckles, Are highest forms of art. | Robert Tristram Coffin |
| It is the artist's business to create sunshine when the sun fails | Romain Rolland (1866-1944) |
| I like to pretend that my art has nothing to do with me. | Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) |
| What is art but a way of seeing? | Saul Bellow (1915-2005) |
| Art expresses man | Shinichi Suzuki (1898-1998) |
| Art is pattern informed by sensibility. | Sir Herbert Read |
| 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. | Susan Sontag (1933-2004) |
| Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery and travail. | Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) |
| Art is permitted to survive only if it renounces the right to be different, and integrates itself into the omnipotent realm of the profane. | Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) |
| True art selects and paraphrases, but seldom gives a verbatim translation | Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907) |
| The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge. | Thomas Berger (1924-) |
| The big artist keeps an eye on nature and steals her tools. | Thomas Eakins |
| Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. | Thomas Merton (1915-1968) |
| Italy is certainly the native country of this art: and yet, I do not find the people in general either more musically inclined, or better provided with ears than their neighbors | Tobias G. Smollett |
| Art is the only way to run away without leaving home. | Twyla Tharp (1941-) |
| Patience is the art of hoping. | Luc de Clapiers Vauvenargues (1715-1747) |
| I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people | Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) |
| I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process. | Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) |
| Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts. | Walker Evans (1903-1975) |
| Art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass. | Walter H. Pater |
| All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music, because, in its ideal, consummate moments, the end is not distinct from the means, the form from the matter, the subject from the expression; and to it therefore, to the condition of its perf | Walter H. Pater |
| There is no must in art because art is free | Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) |
| Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television. | Woody Allen (1935-) |
| Agriculture for an honorable and highminded man, is the best of all occupations or arts by which men procure the means of living | Xenophon |
| The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark. | Agnes De Mille (1905-) |
| The one and only substitute for experience which we have not ourselves had is art, literature | Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-) |
| 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. | Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) |
| Museums are the cemeteries of the arts | Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869) |
| Abstract art is a product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered. | Al Capp (1909-1979) |
| Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art. | Andy Warhol (1928-1987) |
| Art is good when it springs from necessity. This kind of origin is the guarantee of its value; there is no other. | Angela Carter (1940-1992) |
| Art need no longer be an account of past sensations. It can become the direct organization of more highly evolved sensations. It is a question of producing ourselves, not things that enslave us. | Angela Carter (1940-1992) |
| An artist must only judge what he understands; his field is just as restricted as any other specialists | Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) |
| The aim of art is not to represent the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance | Aristoteles (384 f.Kr.-322 f.Kr.) |
| Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. | Aristoteles (384 f.Kr.-322 f.Kr.) |
| The artist is the confidant of nature, flowers carry on dialogues with him through the graceful bending of their stems and the harmoniously tinted nuances of their blossoms. Every flower has a cordial word which nature directs towards him. | Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) |
| Inside you there's an artist you don't know about. He's not interested in how things look different in moonlight. | Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) |
| The artist, depicting man disdainful of the storm and stress of life, is no less reconciling and healing than the poet who, while endowing Nature and Humanity, rejoices in its measureless superiority to human passions and human sorrows | Bernard Berenson (1865-1959) |
| A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment. | Beverly Sills (1929-) |
| It used to be that we in films were the lowest form of art. Now we have something to look down on. (Of Television) | Billy Wilder (1906-2002) |
| Acting allows me to tell a lot of stories, you know start at the beginning, finish at the end, and tell everything in between. Modeling is just an image. | Cameron Diaz (1972-) |
| It is not a disgrace to fail. Failing is one of the greatest arts in the world. | Charles Franklin Kettering (1876-1958) |
| I am following Nature without being able to grasp her...I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. | Claude Monet (1840-1926) |
| Art is the window to man's soul. Without it, he would never be able to see beyond his immediate world; nor could the world see the man within. | Claudia Lady Bird Johnson (1912-) |
| The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up. | Cyril Connolly (1903-1974) |
| Art, as far as it is able, follows nature, as a pupil imitates his master; thus your art must be, as it were, God's grandchild. | Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) |
| If we learn the art of yielding what must be yielded to the changing present, we can save the best of the past | Dean Acheson (1893-1971) |
| Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous you don't want it. | Duke Ellington (1899-1974) |
| Great art is the expression of a solution of the conflict between the demands of the world without and that within. | Edith Hamilton (1867-1963) |
| Art is that which comes to a man, and stands between himself and an implacable witness: the work. | Eduardo Chillida |
| The conditions you need to be a good goalkeeper are exactly the same conditions you need to be a good sculptor. You must have a very good connection, in both professions, with time and space. | Eduardo Chillida |
| Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That's how I get my kicks. | Edward Koch (1924-) |
| Art is the only thing that can go on mattering once it has stopped hurting | Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973) |
| There are two men inside the artist, the poet and the craftsman. One is born a poet. One becomes a craftsman. | Émile Zola (1840-1902) |
| The arts are not just instantaneous pleasure - if you don't like it, the artist is wrong. I belong to the generation which says if you don't like it, you don't understand and you ought to find out. | Ethel Barrymore (1879-1959) |
| I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a 'will to renewal'. This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of 'crises', of rupture, re | Eugène Ionesco (1909-1994) |
| The job of the artist is to deepen the mystery | Francis Bacon (1909-1992) |
| Simplicity and repose are the qualities that measure the true value of any work of art. | Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) |
| It is only after years of preparation that the young artist should touch color - not color used descriptively, that is, but as a means of personal expression. | Henri Matisse (1869-1954) |
| We work in the dark, We do what we can, We give what we have, Our doubt is our passion, And our passion is our task, The rest is the madness of art | Jr. Henry James (1843-1916) |
| The art is long, life is short | Hippocrates |
| What is art? Nature concentrated. | Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) |
| Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls. | Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982) |
| Art distills sensation and embodies it with enhanced meaning in a memorable form - or else it is not art. | Jacques Barzun (1907-) |
| The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails | James Joyce (1882-1941) |
| One of the most striking signs of the decay of art is when we see its separate forms jumbled together. | Jean-Luc Godard (1930-) |
| Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious. | Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) |
| Creative without strategy is called 'art.' Creative with strategy is called 'advertising.' | Jef I. Richards |
| You always feel better when you sing. Music touches people's hearts. You know, it doesn't go through your mental capacity, it just moves you and it will let you cry. It's worth it doing a show and when you touch a crowd and move yourself at the same | Jewel Kilcher (1974-) |
| Art is the triumph over chaos. | John Cheever (1912-1982) |
| Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea. | John Ciardi (1916-1986) |
| As long as art is the beauty parlor of civilization, neither art nor civilization is secure | John Dewey (1859-1952) |
| Art is like baby shoes. When you coat them with gold, they can no longer be worn. | John Updike (1932-) |
| The temple of art is built in words. | Josiah Gilbert Holland |
| They are more beautiful than anything in the world, kinetic sculptures, perfect form in motion | Kate Millett (1934-) |
| Art has no enemy except ignorance | Latin Proverb |
| Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake? | Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) |
| The artist does not illustrate science (but) he frequently responds to the same interests that a scientist does | Lewis Mumford (1895-1990) |
| No one should drive a hard bargain with an artist. | Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) |
| Art! Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this great goddess? | Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) |
| Art is nature speeded up and God slowed down. | Malcolm de Chazal (1929-) |
| Art can only be truly art by presenting an adequate outward symbol of some fact in the interior life. | Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) |
| Classic art was the art of necessity: modern romantic art bears the stamp of caprice and chance. | Max Eastman (1883-1969) |
| It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process. | Max Eastman (1883-1969) |
| The best artist has that thought alone Which is contained within the marble shell; The sculptor's hand can only break the spell To free the figures slumbering in the stone | Michelangelo (1475-1564) |
| The best of artists has no conception that the marble alone does not contain within itself. | Michelangelo (1475-1564) |
| The best of artists hath no thought to show, which the rough stone in its superfluous shell, doth not include; to break the marble spell, is all the hand that serves the brain can do. | Michelangelo (1475-1564) |
| However much you are read in theory, if thou hast no practice thou art ignorant | Muslih-uddin Sadi |
| Art is on the side of the oppressed. Think before you shudder at the simplistic dictum and its heretical definition of the freedom of art. For if art is freedom of the spirit, how can it exist within the oppressors? | Nadine Gordimer (1923-) |
| Were art to redeem man, it could do so only by saving him from the seriousness of life and restoring him to an unexpected boyishness. | Northrop Frye (1912-1991) |
| Art is an invention of aesthetics, which in turn is an invention of philosophers... What we call art is a game. | Octavio Paz (1914-1998) |
| The enemy of art is the absence of limitations. | Orson Welles (1915-1985) |
| Bad artists copy. Good artists steal. | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them. | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up. | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot; others transform a yellow spot into the sun. | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| One never knows what one is going to do. One starts a painting and then it becomes something quite different. | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| In art, one idea is as good as another. If one takes the idea of trembling, for instance, all of a sudden most art starts to tremble. Michelangelo starts to tremble. El Greco starts to tremble. All the Impressionists start to tremble. | Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) |
| In art, all who have done something other than their predecessors have merited the epithet of revolutionary; and it is they alone who are masters. | Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) |
| Politics is the art of preventing people from sticking their noses in things that are properly their business. | Paul Valéry (1871-1945) |
| Art is man's nature; nature is God's art | Philip James Bailey (1816-1902) |
| In Art, man reveals himself and not his objects. | Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) |
| The blues is an art of ambiguity, an assertion of the irrepressibly human over all circumstances, whether created by others or by one's own human failing. | Ralph Ellison (1914-) |
| To send light into the darkness of men's hearts - such is the duty of the artist. | Robert A. Schumann (1810-1856) |
| Art is not in some far-off place. A work of Art is the expression of a man's whole personality, sensibility and ability | Shinichi Suzuki (1898-1998) |
| The real essence of art turned out to be not something high up and far off - it was right inside my ordinary daily self - If a musician wants to become a finer artist, he must first become a finer person. | Shinichi Suzuki (1898-1998) |
| Art Exist for the human species. I think that all of the people who love art, those who teach art, and all of you should burn with the obligation to save the world | Shinichi Suzuki (1898-1998) |
| The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable. | Sun Tzu (544 f.Kr.-496 f.Kr.) |
| I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners. | Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) |
| I can't change the fact that my paintings don't sell. But the time will come when people will recognize that they are worth more than the value of the paints used in the picture. | Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) |
| The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is. | Willa Sibert Cather (1873-1947) |
| Poetry is that art which selects and arranges the symbols of thought in such a manner as to excite the imagination the most powerfully and delightfully | William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) |
| The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. | William Faulkner (1897-1962) |
| Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art | Konstantin Stanislavsky (1863-1938) |
| Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. | Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) |
| Bad artists always admire each others work. | Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) |
| I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people | Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) |
| I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process. | Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) |
| So-called art restoration is at least as tricky as brain surgery. Most pictures expire under scalpel and sponge. | Alexander Eliot |
| My trade and art is to live. | Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) |
| The artist is the confidant of nature, flowers carry on dialogues with him through the graceful bending of their stems and the harmoniously tinted nuances of their blossoms. Every flower has a cordial word which nature directs towards him. | Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) |
| I photograph the things that I do not wish to paint, the things which already have an existence. | Man Ray (1890-1976) |
| I want to be an artist that everyone can relate to, that's young, happy and fun. | Britney Spears (1981-) |
| The artist, depicting man disdainful of the storm and stress of life, is no less reconciling and healing than the poet who, while endowing Nature and Humanity, rejoices in its measureless superiority to human passions and human sorrows | Bernard Berenson (1865-1959) |
| What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter - a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue. | Henri Matisse (1869-1954) |
| I criticize by creation, not by finding fault | Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 f.Kr.-43 f.Kr.) |
| Acting allows me to tell a lot of stories, you know start at the beginning, finish at the end, and tell everything in between. Modeling is just an image. | Cameron Diaz (1972-) |
| The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act. | Marcus Aurelius Antonius (121-180) |
| Journalism is the art of collecting varying kinds of information (commonly called "news") which a few people possess and of transmitting it to a much larger number of people who are supposed to desire to share it. | Henry R. Luce (1898-1967) |
| 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. | Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) |
| The artistic temperament is a disease that affects amateurs. Artists of a large and wholesome vitality get rid of their art easily, as they breathe easily or perspire easily. But in artists of less force the thing becomes a pressure, and produces def | Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) |
| Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art | Konstantin Stanislavsky (1863-1938) |
| Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. | Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) |
| Da jeg var dreng, sagde min mor til mig: "Hvis du bliver soldat, ender du som general. Hvis du bliver munk, ender du som pave". Men i stedet blev jeg maler og endte som Picasso. | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person. | Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) |
| Art, whose honesty must work through artifice, cannot avoid cheating truth. | Adrienne Rich (1929-) |
| The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark. | Agnes De Mille (1905-) |
| What can this piece of paper do; imagine? | Alamgir Hashmi |
| A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened. | Albert Camus (1913-1960) |
| Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others. | Albert Camus (1913-1960) |
| I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. | Albert Einstein (1879-1955) |
| Personally, I experience the greatest degree of pleasure in having contact with works of art. They furnish me with happy feelings of an intensity such as I cannot derive from other realms. | Albert Einstein (1879-1955) |
| one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science isescape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopelessdreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. Afinely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into theworld of objective perception and thought. | Albert Einstein (1879-1955) |
| The finest works of art are precious, among other reasons, because they make it possible for us to know, if only imperfectly and for a little while, what it actually feels like to think subtly and feel nobly | Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) |
| Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern. | Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) |
| The artist is the only one who knows that the world is a subjective creation, that there is a choice to be made, a selection of elements | Anaïs Nin (1903-1977) |
| War will disappear only when men shall take no part whatever in violence and shall be ready to suffer every persecution that their abstention will bring them. It is the only way to abolish war. | Anatole France (1844-1924) |
| The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards. | Anatole France (1844-1924) |
| Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better. | André Gide (1869-1951) |
| Memory is a great artist. For every man and for every woman it makes the recollection of his or her life a work of art and an unfaithful record. | André Maurois (1885-1967) |
| An artist is someone who produces things that people don't need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea to give them. | Andy Warhol (1928-1987) |
| My idea of a good picture is one that's in focus and of a famous person. | Andy Warhol (1928-1987) |
| Art need no longer be an account of past sensations. It can become the direct organization of more highly evolved sensations. It is a question of producing ourselves, not things that enslave us. | Angela Carter (1940-1992) |
| Art is why I get up in the morning; my definition ends there. You know it doesn't seem fair, that I'm living for something I can't even define. And there you are right there, in the mean time. | Ani diFranco (1970-) |
| In spite of all the refinements of society that conspired to make art – the dizzying perfection of the string quartet or the sprawling grandeur of Fragonard’s canvases – beauty was savage. It was as dangerous and lawless as the earth had been eons before man had one single coherent thought in his head or wrote codes of conduct on tablets of clay. Beauty was a Savage Garden. | Anne Rice (1941-) |
| There is nothing new in art except talent. | Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) |
| To the artist there is never anything ugly in nature. | Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) |
| Art is too serious to be taken seriously. | Ayn Rand (1905-1982) |
| Nature scarcely ever gives us the very best; for that we must have recourse to art. | Baltasar Gracián (1601-1658) |
| Compelling art to me is a name carved into a tree. Sometimes a rock soaring through a plate of glass can be the most beautiful, compelling work of art I have ever seen. | Barry McGee |
| O Music! Miraculous art! A blast of thy trumpet and millions rush forward to die; a peal of thy organ and uncounted nations sink down to pray | Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) |
| Art knows no limit, and the artists will never achieve perfection. | Bente Borsum |
| The artist, depicting man disdainful of the storm and stress of life, is no less reconciling and healing than the poet who, while endowing Nature and Humanity, rejoices in its measureless superiority to human passions and human sorrows | Bernard Berenson (1865-1959) |
| The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them. | Bernard M. Baruch (1870-1965) |
| Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with whichto shape it. | Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) |
| Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad. (Acts 26:26) | Bible |
| Music can save people, but it can't in the commercial way it's being used. It's just too much. It's pollution. | Bob Dylan (1941-) |
| Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing. | Camille Pissarro |
| What is essential in a work of art is that it should rise far above the realm of personal life and speak to the spirit and heart of the poet as man to the spirit and heart of mankind | Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) |
| This whole creation is essentially subjective, and the dream is the theater where the dreamer is at once: scene, actor, prompter, stage manager, author, audience, and critic. | Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) |
| Art never comes from happiness. | Chuck Palahniuk (1961-) |
| It’s funny how the beauty of art has so much more to do with the frame than with the artwork itself. | Chuck Palahniuk (1961-) |
| Art is an absolute mistress; she will not be coquetted with or slighted; she requires the most entire self-devotion, and she repays with grand triumphs. | Cyril Connolly (1903-1974) |
| Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper function of the critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it. | D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) |
| An artist is only an ordinary man with a greater potentiality--same stuff, same make up, only more force. And the strong driving force usually finds his weak spot, and he goes cranked, or goes under. | D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) |
| We have lost the art of living, and in the most important science of all, the science of daily life, the science of behavior, we are complete ignoramuses. We have psychology instead. | D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) |
| Art-speech is the only truth. An artist is usually a damned liar, but his art, if it be art, will tell you the truth of his day. And that is all that matters. Away with eternal truth. | D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) |
| If you look at each individual part of my face they look exactly like part of my face. Together it's surreal. | Daniel Radcliffe (1989-) |
| It was Public Art, defined as art that is purchased by experts who are not spending their own personal money. | Dave Barry (1947-) |
| The criminal, like the artist, is a social explorer. | David Carson |
| The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist. | David Hockney (1937-) |
| One of the jobs of art is to inspire discussion, and Brokeback Mountain certainly has done that. It's like a window and a mirror. You're looking through a window at lives you may or may not have experienced. But it's a mirror in the sense we've all felt lonely; we're all, at one time or another, looking for and hoping for love. | Diana Ossana |
| Years ago I used to think it was possible for a novelist to alter the inner life of the culture. Now bomb-makers and gunman have taken that territory. They make raids on human consciousness. What writers used to do before we were all incorporated. | Don Delillo (1936-) |
| Art is a form of catharsis | Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) |
| Leadership: The art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. | Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) |
| 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 (1879-1970) |
| Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term art, I should call it "the Reproduction of what the senses perceive in nature through the veil of the mist | Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) |
| Art is not what you see, but what you make others see. | Edgar Degas (1834-1917) |
| Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things | Edgar Degas (1834-1917) |
| Surely nothing has to listen to so many stupid remarks as a painting in a museum. | Edmond and Jules De Goncourt |
| Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing | Edmund Burke (1729-1797) |
| The real truthfulness of all works of imagination, sculpture, painting, and written fiction, is so purely in the imagination, that the artist never seeks to represent positive truth, but the idealized image of a truth | Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) |
| Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That's how I get my kicks. | Edward Koch (1924-) |
| The course of Nature is the art of God | Edward Young (1683-1765) |
| Nothing pleases me. | El Greco |
| Art is not a thing; it is a way. | Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) |
| Art is one thing that can go on mattering once it has stopped hurting. | Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973) |
| Where thou art, that is home. | Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) |
| All great art is by its very essence in conflict with the society with which it exists. It expresses the truth about the existence regardless of whether this truth serves or hinders the survival purpose of a given society. All great art is revolutionary because it touches upon the reality of man and questions the reality of the various transitory forms of human society. | Erich Fromm (1900-1980) |
| The individual, the great artist when he comes, uses everything that has been discovered or known about his art up to that point, being able to accept or reject in a time so short it seems that the knowledge was born with him, rather than that he tak | Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) |
| Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter's honor. | Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) |
| Identity is theft of the self | Estee Martin |
| The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing. | Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) |
| What moves those of genius, what inspires their work is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough. | Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) |
| Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction. | Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) |
| THe artist is the medium between his fantasies and the rest of the world. | Federico Fellini (1920-1993) |
| I discovered that what's really important for a creator isn't what we vaguely define as inspiration or even what it is we want to say, recall, regret, or rebel against. No, what's important is the way we say it. Art is all about craftsmanship. Others can interpret craftsmanship as style if they wish. Style is what unites memory or recollection, ideology, sentiment, nostalgia, presentiment, to the way we express all that. It's not what we say but how we say it that matters. | Federico Fellini (1920-1993) |
| The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express. | Francis Bacon, Sr. (1561-1626) |
| The art of using moderate abilities to advantage often brings greater results than actual brilliance. | François de la Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) |
| Art for art's sake is a philosophy of the well-fed. | Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) |
| You can be the most artistically perfect performer in the world, but an audience is like a broad - if you're indifferent, Endsville. | Frank Sinatra (1915-1998) |
| Every art requires the whole person | French Proverb |
| Art is essentially the affirmation, the blessing, and the deification of existence | Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) |
| Art is the proper task of life. | Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) |
| For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity or perception to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication | Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) |
| 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. | Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) |
| Art raises its head where creeds relax | Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) |
| There is one thing one has to have: either a soul that is cheerful by nature, or a soul made cheerful by work, love, art, and knowledge. | Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) |
| All that we call spirit and art and ecstacy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forgot. | G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) |
| Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame. | G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) |
| Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable. | George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) |
| The true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art | George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) |
| Great art is as irrational as great music. It is mad with its own loveliness. | George Jean Nathan (1882-1958) |
| I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me ... shapes and ideas so near to me ... so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down. | Georgia O'Keeffe |
| I know now that most people are so closely concerned with themselves that they are not aware of their own individuality. I can see myself, and it has helped me to say what I want to say ... in paint. | Georgia O'Keeffe |
| To become truly immortal, a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken, it will enter the realms of childhood visions and dreams. | Giorgio de Chirico |
| The public history of modern art is the story of conventional people not knowing what they are dealing with. | Golda Meir (1898-1978) |
| Art is accusation, expression, passion. Art is a fight to the finish between black charcoal and white paper. | Gunter Grass (1927-) |
| The artist ought no more to appear in his work than God in nature. | Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) |
| Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art. | Harry S Truman (1884-1972) |
| The weather-cock on the church spire, though made of iron, would soon be broken by the storm-wind if it... did not understand the noble art of turning to every wind. | Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) |
| An artist must possess Nature. He must identify himself with her rhythm, by efforts that will prepare the mastery which will later enable him to express himself in his own language. | Henri Matisse (1869-1954) |
| The artist must summon all his energy, his sincerity, and the greatest modesty in order to shatter the old cliches that come so easily to hand while working, which can suffocate the little flower that does not come, ever, the way one expects. | Henri Matisse (1869-1954) |
| The only valid thing in art is the one thing that cannot be explained, to explain away the mystery of a great painting would do irreplaceable harm, for whenever you explain or define something you substitute the explanation or the definition for the | Henri Matisse (1869-1954) |
| Those who work in a preconceived style, deliberately turning their backs on nature, miss the truth. An artist must recognize, when he is reasoning, that his picture is an artifice; but when he is painting, he should feel that he has copied nature. An | Henri Matisse (1869-1954) |
| An artist must never be a prisoner. Prisoner? An artist should never be a prisoner of himself, prisoner of style, prisoner of reputation, prisoner of success, etc. | Henri Matisse (1869-1954) |
| In art, truth and reality begin when one no longer understands what one is doing or what one knows, and when there remains an energy that is all the stronger for being constrained, controlled and compressed. | Henri Matisse (1869-1954) |
| When I hear artists and authors making fun of business men I think of a regiment in which the band makes fun of the cooks | Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956) |
| Art is long, and Time is fleeting | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) |
| Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) |
| A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors. | Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) |
| To array a man's will against his sickness is the supreme art of medicine. | Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) |
| The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things. | Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) |
| Art is the objectification of feeling. | Herman Melville (1819-1891) |
| All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual. | Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) |
| The art galleries of Paris contain the finest collection of frames I ever saw. | Sir Humphrey Davy (1778-1829) |
| No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight of the soul | Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982) |
| Art is the final cunning of the human soul which would rather do anything than face the gods. | Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) |
| The painting has a life of its own. | Jackson Pollack |
| Every good painter paints what he is. | Jackson Pollack |
| The more a man cultivates the arts the less he fornicates. A more and more apparent cleavage occurs between the spirit and the brute. | Jacques Barzun (1907-) |
| The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers. | James Arthur Baldwin (1924-1987) |
| Unless artists can remember what it was to be a little boy, they are only half complete as artist and as man. | James Thurber (1894-1961) |
| Art happens no hovel is safe from it, no Prince may depend upon it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about, and puny efforts to make it universal end in quaint comedy, and coarse farce | James Whistler (1834-) |
| An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision. | James Whistler (1834-) |
| The art of a people is a true mirror of their minds | Jawaharlal Nehru (om Indira Gandhi) (1889-1964) |
| One of the most striking signs of the decay of art is when we see its separate forms jumbled together. | Jean-Luc Godard (1930-) |
| I had some money, I made the best paintings ever. I was completely reclusive, worked a lot, took a lot of drugs. I was awful to people. | Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) |
| A genius knows how to make himself easily understood without being obvious about it. | Jean Anouilh (1910-1987) |
| When a work of art appears to be in advance of its period, it is really the period that has lagged behind the work of art | Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) |
| An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original. | Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) |
| An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture. | Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) |
| Believe it or not, I can actually draw. | Jean Michel Basquiat (1960-) |
| Words are beautiful but restricted. They're very masculine, with a compact frame. But voice is over, the dark, the place where there's nothing to hang on: it comes from a part of yourself that simply knows, expresses itself, and is. | Jeff Buckley (1966-1997) |
| Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries. | Jimmy Carter (1924-2002) |
| The work of art may have a moral effect, but to demand moral purpose from the artist is to make him ruin his work | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) |
| There is no better deliverance from the world than through art; and a man can form no surer bond with it than through art | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) |
| The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them. | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) |
| The connoisseur of art must be able to appreciate what is simply beautiful, but the common run of people is satisfied with ornament | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) |
| The artist who is not also a craftsman is no good; but, alas, most of our artists are nothing else | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) |
| Science and art belong to the whole world, and before them vanish the barriers of nationality | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) |
| There is no patriotic art and no patriotic science | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) |
| Each has his own happiness in his hands, as the artist handles the rude clay he seeks to reshape it into a figure; yet it is the same with this art as with all others: only the capacity for it is innate; the art itself must be learned and painstaking | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) |
| The highest problem of every art is, by means of appearances, to produce the illusion of a loftier reality | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) |
| Nature alone is illimitably rich, and Nature alone forms the great artist. | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) |
| Art is the most passionate orgy within man's grasp. | John Donne (1572-1631) |
| For Art may err, but Nature cannot miss. | John Dryden (1631-1700) |
| If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. | John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) |
| Art is the great democrat, calling forth creative genius from every sector of society, disregarding race or religion or wealth or color | John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) |
| Above all, we are coming to understand that the arts incarnate the creativity of a free people. When the creative impulse cannot flourish, when it cannot freely select its methods and objects, when it is deprived of spontaneity, then society severs | John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) |
| Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. | John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-) |
| No art can be noble which is incapable of expressing thought, and no art is capable of expressing thought which does not change | John Ruskin (1819-1900) |
| Great art is precisely that which never was, nor will be taught, it is preeminently and finally the expression of the spirits of great men | John Ruskin (1819-1900) |
| Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth. | John Ruskin (1819-1900) |
| No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art | John Ruskin (1819-1900) |
| All that is good in art is the expression of one soul talking to another; and is precious according to the greatness of the soul that utters it | John Ruskin (1819-1900) |
| The refusal to rest content, the willingness to risk excess on behalf of one's obsessions, is what distinguishes artists from entertainers, and what makes some artists adventurers on behalf of us all. | John Updike (1932-) |
| Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others. | Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) |
| A man that has a taste of music, painting, or architecture, is like one that has another sense, when compared with such as have no relish of those arts | Joseph Addison (1672-1719) |
| An artist is a man of action, whether he creates a personality, invents an expedient, or finds the issue of a complicated situation | Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) |
| I paint paintings because I can't get the experience in any other way but there are many more experiences that are equally satisfying to me and equally inept at answering all my questions, but hover in exactitude in describing themselves and defying me to define their logic. | Julian Schnabel |
| Look. Art knows no prejudice, art knows no boundaries, art doesn't really have judgement in it's purest form. So just go, just go. | K. D. Lang (1961-) |
| Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed. | Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) |
| I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art. | Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) |
| Art is always and everywhere the secret confession, and at the same time the immortal movement of its time | Karl Marx mamma (1818-1883) |
| I think most of the people involved in any art always secretly wonder whether they are really there because they're good or there because they're lucky. | Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003) |
| Genius can probably run on ahead and seek out new ways; but the good artists who follow after genius - and I count myself among these - have to restore the lost connection once more. | Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945) |
| Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced. | Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) |
| Art is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen. | Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) |
| Art is never finished, only abandoned. | Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) |
| Art is a fruit that grows in man, like a fruit on a plant, or a child in its mother's womb. | Lillian Smith (1897-1966) |
| I just feel that I'm in tune with the right vibrations in the universe when I'm in the process of working. | Louise Nevelson (1900-1988) |
| A writer or painter cannot change the world. But they can keep an essential margin of nonconformity alive. | Luis Buñuel (1900-1983) |
| Love isn't an emotion or an instinct--it's an art. | Mae West (1892-1980) |
| To a true artist only that face is beautiful which, quite apart from its exterior, shines with the truth within the soul | Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) |
| 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. | Marcel Proust (1871-1922) |
| Only through art can we emerge from ourselves and know what another person sees | Marcel Proust (1871-1922) |
| No form of Nature is inferior to Art; for the arts merely imitate natural forms | Marcus Aurelius Antonius (121-180) |
| There is not only an art, but an eloquence in it. | Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 f.Kr.-43 f.Kr.) |
| I criticize by creation, not by finding fault | Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 f.Kr.-43 f.Kr.) |
| I think of art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it. | Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) |
| 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 to it. | Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) |
| Great art speaks a language which every intelligent person can understand. The people who call themselves modernists today speak a different language. | Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) |
| Art is anything you can get away with. | Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) |
| For those that see subject matter in paintings as static are not only missing the story behind the work, they are mssing out on how form can be reinterpreted and how our use of composition and perspective has been altered as time goes on. | Martin Dansky (1952-) |
| The key in composing any painting is without thinking how long trends will last, or worrying what style art books would classify them under. Now if someone finds the composition to be postmodern or not that's either their pleasure or their problem. | Martin Dansky (1952-) |
| Good art is art that allows you to enter it from a variety of angles and to emerge with a variety of views. | Mary Schmich |
| If you practice an art, be proud of it and make it proud of you It may break your heart, but it will fill your heart before it breaks it; it will make you a person in your own right. | Maxwell Anderson (1888-1959) |
| We must infuse our lives with art. Our national leaders must be informed that we want them to use our taxes to support street theatre in order to oppose street gangs. We should have a well-supported regional theatre in order to oppose regionalism and | Maya Angelou (1928-) |
| I suggest that the great art belongs to all people, all the time--that indeed it is made for the people, by the people, to the people. | Maya Angelou (1928-) |
| Art is what's left over after you've defined everything else | Michael Vitale |
| In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it. | Michelangelo (1475-1564) |
| Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end. | Milan Kundera (1929-) |
| Art is so wonderfully irrational, exuberantly pointless, but necessary all the same. Pointless and yet necessary, that's hard for a puritan to understand. | Nadine Gordimer (1923-) |
| I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies. | Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) |
| Time is the great art of man. | Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) |
| While I recognize the necessity for a basis of observed reality... true art lies in a reality that is felt. | Odilon Redon (1840-1916) |
| An artist that works in marble or colors has them all to himself and his tribe, but the man who molds his thoughts in verse has to employ the materials vulgarized by everybody's use, and glorify them by his handling | Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) |
| The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you. | Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) |
| Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known. | Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) |
| One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art. | Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) |
| It is through Art and through Art only that we can realize our perfection; through Art and Art only that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence | Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) |
| It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors | Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) |
| I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself. | Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) |
| All art is quite useless. | Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) |
| To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim | Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) |
| It is Nature who makes our artists for us, though it may be Art who taught them their right mode of expression. | Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) |
| What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who has only his eyes if he is a painter, or his ears if he is a musician, or a lyre at every level of his heart if he is a poet, or, if he is merely a boxer, only his muscle? On the contrary, he is at the same time a political being, constantly alert to the heartrending, burning, or happy events in the world, molding himself in their likeness. | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| Give me a museum and I'll fill it. | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls. | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| Are we to paint what's on the face, what's inside the face, or what's behind it? | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant, and the cat. He has no real style. He just keeps on trying other things. | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| One never knows what one is going to do. One starts a painting and then it becomes something quite different. | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don't start measuring her limbs. | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| The artist is a receptacle for the emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web. | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| When you start with a portrait and try to find pure form by abstracting more and more, you must end up with an egg. | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| Art is the elimination of the unnecessary | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) |
| The work of art must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself and carry you away. It is the means by which the artist conveys his passion. It is the current which he puts forth, which sweeps you along in his passion | Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) |
| There are three arts which are concerned with all things; one which uses, another which makes, a third which imitates them | Platon (427 f.Kr.-348 f.Kr.) |
| I'm a passionate believer in the inherent creativity possessed by all people and our inherent ability--if it's not clouded by convention--to appreciate authentic beauty in all forms, whether we like it or not. | Porter Arneill |
| Aesthetics happen. | Porter Arneill |
| The picture of a flower in a botanical book is information; its mission ends with our knowledge. But in pure art it is a personal communication. And therefore until it finds its harmony in the depth of our personality it misses the mark. We can treat | Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) |
| Things are distinct not in their essence but in their appearance; in other words, in their relation to one to whom they appear. This is art, the truth of which is not in substance or logic, but in expression. Abstract truth may belong to science and | Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) |
| We can make truth ours by actively modulating its inter-relations. This is the work of art; for reality is not based in the substance of things but in the principle of relationship. Truth is the infinite pursued by metaphysics; fact is the infinite p | Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) |
| What is Art? It is the response of man's creative soul to the call of the Real. | Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) |
| Surely all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further | Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) |
| The blues is an art of ambiguity, an assertion of the irrepressibly human over all circumstances, whether created by others or by one's own human failing. | Ralph Ellison (1914-) |
| Love of beauty is Taste. The creation of beauty is Art. | Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) |
| Art is a jealous mistress. | Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) |
| Art is the path of the creator to his work | Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) |
| Art is a jealous mistress, and, if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture, or philosophy, he makes a bad husband, and an ill provider, and should be wise in season, and not fetter himself with duties which will embitter his day | Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) |
| The true artist has the planet for his pedestal; the adventurer, after years of strife, has nothing broader than his shoes | Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) |
| Each of the arts whose office is to refine, purify, adorn, embellish and grace life is under the patronage of a muse, no god being found worthy to preside over them. | Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) |
| Art is a jealous mistress, and if a man has a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture or philosophy, he makes a bad husband and an ill provider. | Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) |
| In art the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire | Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) |
| Perpetual modernness is the measure of merit in every work of art. | Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) |
| Art includes everything that stimulates the desire to live. | Remy de Gourmont (1858-1915) |
| Art is moral passion married to entertainment. Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda, and entertainment without moral passion is television. | Rita Mae Brown (1944-) |
| One may do whatever one likes in art: the only thing is to make sure that one does not like it | Robert Browning (1812-1889) |
| The web, then, or the pattern, a web at once sensuous and logical, an elegant and pregnant texture: that is style, that is the foundation of the art of literature. | Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) |
| I haled me a woman from the street, Shameless but oh so fair, I bade her sit in the model's seat, And I painted her sitting there. | Robert Service (1874-1958) |
| Art is wine and experience is the brandy we distill from it | Robertson Davies (1913-1995) |
| Well, allow me to introduce myself to you as an advocate of Ornamental Knowledge. You like the mind to be a neat machine, equipped to work efficiently, if narrowly, and with no extra bits or useless parts. I like the mind to be a dustbin of scraps of brilliant fabric, odd gems, worthless but fascinating curiosities, tinsel, quaint bits of carving, and a reasonable amount of healthy dirt. Shake the machine and it goes out of order; shake the dustbin and it adjusts itself beautifully to its new position. | Robertson Davies (1913-1995) |
| The avantgarde are people who don’t exactly know where they want to go, but are the first to get there. | Romain Gary (1914-) |
| It is good taste, and good taste alone, that possesses the power to sterilize and is always the first handicap to any creative functioning | Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) |
| The idea that any one of our religions represents the infallible word of the One True God requires an encyclopedic ignorance of history, mythology, and art even to be entertained. | Sam Harris |
| The history of art is the history of revivals | Samuel Butler (1835-1902) |
| Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. | Scott Adams (1957-) |
| Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. | Scott Adams (1957-) |
| Politics has always been the art of the possible. Today it's too often the art of the probable - tinkering around the edges without any greater vision, without a sense of optimism and imagination. | Senator John Kerry (1943-) |
| Art is an attempt to integrate evil | Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) |
| Most works of art, like most wines, ought to be consumed in the district of their fabrication. | Simone Weil (1909-1943) |
| If Goddess religion is not to become mindless idiocy, we must win clear of tendency of magic to become supertition. Magic - and among its branches I include psychology as its purpose to describe and change consciousness - is an art. | Starhawk |
| Art never improves, but . . . the material of art is never quite the same. | T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) |
| All good art is an indiscretion | Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) |
| The theatre is a place where one has time for the problems of people to whom one would show the door if they came to one's office for a job. | Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) |
| Art is permitted to survive only if it renounces the right to be different, and integrates itself into the omnipotent realm of the profane. | Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) |
| Art helps nature, and experience art | Thomas Fuller (1608-1661) |
| The art of governing consists simply of being honest, exercising common sense, following principle, and doing what is right and just. | Thomas Jefferson (1762-1826) |
| The notion that the public accepts or rejects anything in modern art is merely romantic fiction. The game is completed and the trophies distributed long before the public knows what has happened. | Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938) |
| Progress is the life-style of man. The general life of the human race is called Progress, and so is its collective march. Progress advances, it makes the great human and earthly journey towards what is heavenly and divine; it has its pauses, when it | Victor Hugo (1802-1885) |
| I consciously choose the dog's path through life. I shall be poor; I shall be a painter... | Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) |
| How rich art is; if one can only remember what one has seen, one is never without food for thought or truly lonely, never alone. | Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) |
| I want to do drawings which touch people...In figure or landscape I should wish to express, not sentimental melancholy, but serious sorrow. | Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) |
| A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become. | W. H. Auden (1907-1973) |
| All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music, because, in its ideal, consummate moments, the end is not distinct from the means, the form from the matter, the subject from the expression; and to it therefore, to the condition of its perf | Walter H. Pater |
| Art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass. | Walter H. Pater |
| I strove with none; for none was worth my strife; Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art; I warmed both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart | Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864) |
| What was any art but a mould in which to imprison for a moment the shining elusive element which is life itself - life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose. | Willa Sibert Cather (1873-1947) |
| Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death. God is Jesus. | William Blake (1757-1827) |
| Supreme art is a traditional statement of certain heroic and religious truth, passed on from age to age, modified by individual genius, but never abandoned | William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) |
| The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook. | William James (1842-1910) |
| There is no more difficult art to acquire than the art of observation, and for some men it is quite as difficult to record an observation in brief and plain language. | William Osler (1849-1919) |
| No, thou villain, thou art full of piety | William Shakespeare (1564-1616) |
| Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul. | William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) |
| The value of art is not beauty, but right action | William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) |
| Art is science made clear. | Wilson Mizner (1876-1933) |