Art Quotations

Abraham Lincoln

The highest art is always the most religious, and...

Alan Rickman

If only life could be a little more tender...

Albert Camus

A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of...

Albert Camus

Abstract Art: A product of the untalented, sold by...

Albert Camus

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a...

Albert Camus

Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the...

Albert Einstein

True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in...

Alexander Calder

My fan mail is enormous. Everyone is under...

Alexander Calder

To an engineer, good enough means perfect. With an...

Alexander Pope

So vast is art, so narrow human...

Al Capp

Abstract art is a product of the untalented, sold...

Ambrose Bierce

Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from...

Ambrose Bierce

Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction...

Amy Lowell

Art is the desire of a man to express...

Anais Nin

If you do not breathe through writing, if you...

Anatole France

In art as in love, instinct is...

Andre Gide

Art begins with resistance - at the point where...

Andre Gide

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist,...

Andy Warhol

An artist is someone who produces things that people...

Andy Warhol

Being born is like being kidnapped. And then sold...

Andy Warhol

Dying is the most embarrassing thing that can ever...

Andy Warhol

I am a deeply superficial...

Andy Warhol

I'm afraid that if you look at a thing...

Andy Warhol

In the future everyone will be famous for 15...

Anish Kapoor

Artists don't make objects. Artists make...

Ansel Adams

Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe...

Ansel Adams

The negative is comparable to the composer's score and...

Ansel Adams

You don't take a photograph, you make...

Aristotle

Well begun is half...

Arthur Erickson

Rationalism is the enemy of art, though necessary as...

Arthur Erickson

Vitality is radiated from exceptional art and...

Arthur Schopenhauer

Treat a work of art like a prince. Let...

Auguste Rodin

I choose a block of marble and chop off...

Auguste Rodin

Inside you there's an artist you don't know about....

Augustus Saint-Gaudens

What garlic is to salad, insanity is to...

Barbra Streisand

I've been called many names like perfectionist, difficult and...

Bernadette Peters

You've gotta be original, because if you're like someone...

Bette Midler

I always try to balance the light with the...

Blaise Pascal

Eloquence is a painting of the...

Brion James

The best thing about Sci-Fi, which is my favorite...

Carl Rogers

The very essence of the creative is its novelty,...

Carroll O'Connor

Even a true artist does not always produce...

Cecil Beaton

Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that...

Charles Baudelaire

A frenzied passion for art is a canker that...

Charles Horton Cooley

An artist cannot fail; it is a success to...

Charles Horton Cooley

One should never criticize his own work except in...

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

We breathe, we think, we conceive of our lives...

Cindy Sherman

I didn't have any interest in traditional...

Clara Schumann

My imagination can picture no fairer happiness than to...

Cyril Connolly

The artist one day falls through a hole in...

Dale Carnegie

The essence of all art is to have pleasure...

Daphne du Maurier

All autobiography is...

David Hockney

Anything simple always interests...

David Hockney

The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty,...

Dick Dale

Every song is like a...

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Motivation is the art of getting people to do...

Edgard Varese

An artist is never ahead of his time but...

Edgar Degas

Painting is easy when you don't know how, but...

Edmond de Goncourt

A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions...

Edward Steichen

Every other artist begins with a blank canvas, a...

Edward Steichen

Photography is a major force in explaining man to...

Edward Steichen

Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the...

Edward Steichen

When that shutter clicks, anything else that can be...

Art is not a thing; it is a...

The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away...

I was the hero of the young insurgent working...

The writer, when he is also an artist, is...

Ellen Barkin

Acting is a matter of giving away...

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

The artist is nothing without the gift, but the...

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage...

Ethel Barrymore

For an actress to be a success, she must...

Eugene Delacroix

The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves...

Thurber did not write the way a surgeon operates,...

To make us feel small in the right way...

Works of art, in my opinion, are the only...

Federico Fellini

All art is autobiographical. The pearl is the oyster's...

Fashion is only the attempt to realize art in...

Some books are to be tasted, others to be...

Art depends on luck and...

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

The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect...

May you live to be 100 and may the...

But, after all, the aim of art is to...

Mournful and yet grand is the destiny of the...

Fran Lebowitz

Andy Warhol made fame more...

Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is...

An artist has no home in Europe except in...

Art is the proper task of...

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art,...

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

Art is the daughter of...

Art is the right hand of Nature. The latter...

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the...

George Edward Moore

A great artist is always before his time or...

An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of...

I found I could say things with color and...

It was in the 1920s, when nobody had time...

Sun-bleached bones were most wonderful against the blue -...

A writer should write with his eyes and a...

Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of...

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line...

Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and...

The man who throws a bomb is an artist,...

Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who...

Of all lies, art is the least...

The real art of conducting consists in...

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

Hedy Lamarr

A good painting to me has always been like...

I cry out for order and find it only...

Hendrik Willem Van Loon

Somewhere in the world there is an epigram for...

Hendrik Willem Van Loon

The arts are an even better barometer of what...

The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a...

To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a...

Henri Matisse

A picture must possess a real power to generate...

Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the...

I don't paint things. I only paint the difference...

I have been no more than a medium, as...

It is only after years of preparation that the...

Time extracts various values from a painter's work. When...

What I dream of is an art of balance,...

You study, you learn, but you guard the original...

Art is man's expression of his joy in...

This world is but a canvas to our...

To affect the quality of the day, that is...

Every artist writes his own...

Henry Miller

An artist is always alone - if he is...

The waking mind is the least serviceable in the...

Henry Moore

A sculptor is a person who is interested in...

It is a mistake for a sculptor or a...

Books are not men and yet they stay...

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul,...

If we could but paint with the hand what...

A picture is a poem without...

Howard Dietz

Composers shouldn't think too much - it interferes with...

Lesser artists borrow, great artists...

Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner...

Italo Calvino

A classic is a book that has never finished...

Every good painter paints what he...

That's the motivation of an artist-to seek attention of...

Things are beautiful if you love...

Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful...

Beauty in art is often nothing but ugliness...

The most profound things are...

The principle of art is to pause, not...

The principles of true art is not to portray,...

When I make art, I think about its ability...

Joan Rivers

Our natures are a lot like oil, mix us...

Jodie Foster

I think an artist's responsibility is more complex than...

In art the best is good...

Personality is everything in art and...

The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has...

The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of...

Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting...

Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking...

John Gregory Dunne

Writing is manual labor of the mind: a job,...

John Le Carre

Writing is like walking in a deserted street. Out...

John Ruskin

All books are divisible into two classes, the books...

John Ruskin

Art is not a study of positive reality, it...

John Ruskin

Fine art is that in which the hand, the...

John Updike

The refusal to rest content, the willingness to risk...

John Updike

What art offers is space - a certain breathing...

Jonathan Swift

Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible...

Josh Billings

About the most originality that any writer can hope...

Josh Billings

Words are often seen hunting for an idea, but...

Jules Feiffer

Artists can color the sky red because they know...

Kahlil Gibran

Art is a step from what is obvious and...

Kary Mullis

Art is subject to arbitrary...

Kenneth Tynan

The buttocks are the most aesthetically pleasing part of...

Kim Cattrall

Art is an expression of who you are. Parts...

Lauryn Hill

You don't know how much artists go through to...

Leonardo da Vinci

Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience...

Leon Trotsky

There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in...

Lionel Trilling

Immature artists imitate. Mature artists...

Liz Phair

Women artists need to break barriers in order for...

Louis Kahn

Every time a student walks past a really urgent,...

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

All art is but imitation of...

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The way is long if one follows precepts, but...

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

A chair is a very difficult object. A skyscraper...

Marcel Proust

Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to...

Marcus Fabius Quintilian

The perfection of art is to conceal...

Marc Chagall

Great art picks up where nature...

Marc Chagall

I adore the theater and I am a painter....

Marc Chagall

The dignity of the artist lies in his duty...

Marc Chagall

When I am finishing a picture, I hold some...

Mark Twain

Words are only painted fire; a book is the...

Marquis De Vauvenargues

The art of pleasing is the art of...

Marshall McLuhan

Ads are the cave art of the twentieth...

Marshall McLuhan

Advertising is the greatest art form of the 20th...

Mary Ellen Mark

I just think it's important to be direct and...

Michael Schenker

When you are live you never know what is...

Michael York

I think it's hard to know. Feeling fulfilled, because...

Michelangelo

A man paints with his brains and not with...

Michelangelo

The true work of art is but a shadow...

Michelangelo

Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no...

Michel de Montaigne

My trade and art is to...

Mickey Spillane

If you're a singer you lose your voice. A...

Mikhail Baryshnikov

People of art should never get married and have...

M. C. Escher

Are you really sure that a floor can't also...

M. C. Escher

Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the...

M. C. Escher

We adore chaos because we love to produce...

Napoleon Bonaparte

A picture is worth a thousand...

Northrop Frye

In our day the conventional element in literature is...

Novalis

The artist belongs to his work, not the work...

Octavio Paz

Art is an invention of aesthetics, which in turn...

Odilon Redon

While I recognize the necessity for a basis of...

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Life is painting a picture, not doing a...

Oscar Levant

I'm a study of a man in chaos in...

Oscar Wilde

A work of art is the unique result of...

Oscar Wilde

All art is quite...

Oscar Wilde

All that I desire to point out is the...

Oscar Wilde

Art is the most intense mode of individualism that...

Oscar Wilde

It is only an auctioneer who can equally and...

Oscar Wilde

No great artist ever sees things as they really...

Pablo Picasso

Art washes away from the soul the dust of...

Pablo Picasso

Every child is an artist. The problem is how...

Pablo Picasso

Give me a museum and I'll fill...

Pablo Picasso

My mother said to me, "If you are a...

Pablo Picasso

Painting is just another way of keeping a...

Pablo Picasso

Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot,...

Pablo Picasso

The artist is a receptacle for the emotions that...

Pablo Picasso

The purpose of art is washing the dust of...

Pablo Picasso

We all know that art is not truth. Art...

Paul Cezanne

The awareness of our own strength makes us...

Paul Cezanne

We live in a rainbow of...

Paul Cezanne

When I judge art, I take my painting and...

Paul Gauguin

Art is either plagiarism or...

Paul Gauguin

In art, all who have done something other than...

Paul Gauguin

The history of modern art is also the history...

Paul Gauguin

There is always a heavy demand for fresh mediocrity....

J. Paul Getty

My love of fine art increased - the more...

Paul Strand

The artist's world is limitless. It can be found...

Paul Valery

An artist never really finishes his work, he merely...

Peter Kropotkin

Have not prisons - which kill all will and...

Peter Shaffer

If London is a watercolor, New York is an...

Dana Plato

The beginning is the most important part of the...

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every artist was first an...

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every man is a quotation from all his...

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Genius always finds itself a century too...

Ralph Waldo Emerson

In art, the hand can never execute anything higher...

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty...

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Pictures must not be too...

Ray Manzarek

Movies were very important. The art-form of the 20th...

Robert Delaunay

Art in Nature is rhythmic and has a horror...

Robert Mapplethorpe

When I work, and in my art, I hold...

Robert Mondavi

We want to raise the art of living...

Robert Schumann

To send light into the darkness of men's hearts...

Roger Daltrey

I don't think there's any way it could have...

Roy Lichtenstein

Art doesn't transform. It just plain...

Roy Lichtenstein

I like to pretend that my art has nothing...

Salvador Dali

Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is...

Salvador Dali

Painting is an infinitely minute part of my...

Salvador Dali

Progressive art can assist people to learn not only...

Samuel Butler

The history of art is the history of...

Samuel Johnson

Words are but the signs of...

Sarah Brightman

I don't want to see pictures of Hollywood stars...

Sarah Brightman

I have a love-hate relationship with...

Sarah Brightman

You do have to be fairly selfish when you...

Sarah McLachlan

Trying to force creativity is never...

Scott Adams

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is...

Sigourney Weaver

I think I have always tried to do the...

Simone Weil

Most works of art, like most wines, ought to...

Stan Getz

I don't think there is the same kind of...

Stephen Sondheim

Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order...

I come from a family of losers, and I've...

Sydney Pollack

You know, essentially when you do a play you're...

Tadao Ando

My hand is the extension of the thinking process...

Ted Shawn

Dance is the only art of which we ourselves...

Temple Grandin

When I was a little child I had problems...

Theodore Bikel

No heirloom of humankind captures the past as do...

Theodore Dreiser

Art is the stored honey of the human soul,...

Theodor Adorno

Art is magic delivered from the lie of being...

Theodor Adorno

The task of art today is to bring chaos...

Thomas Merton

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves...

Thomas Paine

Every science has for its basis a system of...

Thom Yorke

It is difficult to make political art...

Tom Wolfe

Culture is the arts elevated to a set of...

T. S. Eliot

Twentieth-century art may start with nothing, but it flourishes...

Victor Hugo

To love beauty is to see...

Vincent Van Gogh

If you hear a voice within you say "you...

Walt Whitman

The art of art, the glory of expression and...

Willa Cather

What was any art but a mould in which...

William Faulkner

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion,...

William Hazlitt

Rules and models destroy genius and...

William Ralph Inge

Literature flourishes best when it is half trade and...

William Shakespeare

The object of art is to give life a...

William Wordsworth

Pictures deface walls more often than they decorate...

Wilson Mizner

Art is science made...

Winston Churchill

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without...

W. H. Auden

What the mass media offers is not popular art,...

W. Somerset Maugham

Every production of an artist should be the expression...