Art quotes
22.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside art — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"The man who arrives at the doors of artistic creation with none of the madness of the Muses would be convinced that technical ability alone was enough to make an artist... what that man creates by means of reason will pale before the art of inspired beings."
"And yet the artist will go on with his work without knowing in some way if any of his representations are sound or unsound. The artist knows nothing worth mentioning about the subjects he represents, and that art is a form of play, not to be taken seriously."
"It is better to excel in any single art than to arrive only at mediocrity in several, so moderate skill in several is to be preferred where one cannot attain to perfection in any."
"As technology advances at an alarming pace, the place of drawing remains as valid as ever in the creation of art and architecture."
"My parents never prevented me from doing anything, but they didn't have the knowledge of the arts that Mrs. Ranger had."
"Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service."
"Art is mainly about wrestling with material reality, not striving after a spiritual ideal."
"I think it was Henry Moore who was asked where he got his ideas for his sculptures, and he said something like, "I continue to do as an adult the things I did as a child." I think that's what art is about."
"The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person."
"I have never studied the art of paying compliments to women; but I must say that if all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice for their conduct during this war."
"Mass consumption, advertising, and mass art are a corporate Frankenstein; while they reinforce the system, they also undermine it."
"The Art of Love: knowing how to combine the temperament of a vampire with the discretion of an anemone."
"Art is a corner of creation seen through a temperament."
"Is love an art? Then it requires knowledge and effort."
"I shall become a master in this art only after a great deal of practice."
"I may have been prejudiced against lawyer members of Congress, having run against one or two and having been threatened politically by a few others, and also because my own professional background was academic, principally in the liberal arts. Good lawyers, I asserted in campaigns, can be found in the yellow pages of the telephone books. Good historians, or political and social philosophers, are not so easily found or classified."
"The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation."
"Good art however 'immoral' is wholly a thing of virtue. Good art can NOT be immoral. By good art I mean art that bears true witness, I mean the art that is most precise."
"I think sometimes that it is almost a pity to enjoy Italy as much as I do, because the acuteness of my sensations makes them rather exhausting; but when I see the stupid Italians I have met here, completely insensitive to their surroundings, and ignorant of the treasures of art and history among which they have grown up, I begin to think it is better to be an American, and bring to it all a mind and eye unblunted by custom."
"That's like the really fun, exciting thing about wrestling. There's no such thing as perfecting this art. You're constantly growing and you're constantly progressing and changing up you're style and gauging an audience to make sure that audience is enjoying what you're doing."
