Art quotes
22.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside art — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"The power of both myth and art is this magical ability to open doors, to make connections - not only between us and the natural world, but between us and the rest of humanity. Myths show us what we have in common with every other human being, no matter what culture we come from, no matter what century we live in. . .and at the same time, mythic stories and art celebrate our essential differences."
"I admire people who find that what fulfills them is their art or their work, but what fulfills both me and my husband is our family. Knowing that, everything else comes second. We've each given up stuff we loved in order to not work at the same time."
"They self-inflict punishment on their own broken lives, put their faith in their possessions, in their jobs, or their wives."
"All martial art is simply an honest expression of one's body — with a lot of deception in between."
"Good technique includes quick changes, great variety and speed. It may be a system of reversals much like a concept of God and the Devil. In the speed of events, which one is really in charge? Do they change places with lightning speed? The Chinese believe so. To put the heart of the martial arts in your own heart and have it be a part of you means total comprehension."
"Enjoyment is an art and a skill for which we have little talent or energy... your entire education has has deprived you of this capacity because it was preparing you for the future, instead of showing you how to be alive now."
"There is nothing at all that can be talked about adequately, and the whole art of poetry is to say what can't be said."
"We are sick with fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas. Meditation is therefore the art of suspending verbal and symbolic thinking for a time, somewhat as a courteous audience will stop talking when a concert is about to begin."
"To me, art is not a solitary delight. It is a means of stirring the greatest number of men by providing them with a privileged image of our common joys and woes."
"On the ridge where the great artist moves forward, every step is an adventure, an extreme risk. In that risk, however, and only there, lays the freedom of Art."
"In art, rebellion is consummated and perpetuated in the act of real creation, not in criticism or commentary."
"It is impossible to give a clear account of the world, but art can teach us to reproduce it-just as the world reproduces itself in the course of its eternal gyrations. The primordial sea indefatigably repeats the same words and casts up the same astonished beings on the same sea-shore."
"The true work of art is always on the human scale. It is essentially the one that says, 'less."
"How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it."
"The great moral teachers of humanity were in a way artistic geniuses in the art of living."
"Abused as we abuse it at present, dramatic art is in no sense cathartic; it is merely a form of emotional masturbation."
"Virtually everything we do is dependent on others, from the arts and culture to farmers who grow the food we eat. Quite a lot of the differences that make us rich and poor are matters just of luck. To somehow revel in ones privilege would be a mistake. An even bigger mistake would be trying to convert that into a theory that the rich are so much more productive than many of us."
"An artist cannot be partially sincere any more than art can be an approximation of beauty."
"This man, who for twenty-five years has been reading and writing about art, and in all that time has never understood anything about art, has for twenty-five years been hashing over other people's ideas about realism, naturalism and all that nonsense; for twenty-five years he has been reading and writing about what intelligent people already know and about what stupid people don't want to know--which means that for twenty-five years he's been taking nothing and making nothing out of it. And with it all, what conceit! What pretension!"
"All art, all education, can be merely a supplement to nature."
