Art quotes

Art

22.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

22.1K quotes

Explore further

Browse quotes that often appear alongside art — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.

Quote collection

Art quotes (page 175 of 1107)

Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.

Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic
Art

"I am far from any intention to limit curiosity, or confine the labours of learning to arts of immediate and necessary use. It is only from the various essays of experimental industry, and the vague excursions of mind set upon discovery, that any advancement of knowledge can be expected; and though many must be disappointed in their labours, yet they are not to be charged with having spent their time in vain; their example contributed to inspire emulation, and their miscarriage taught others the way to success."

Read quote 6 likes
Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic
Art

"Affectation is to be always distinguished from hypocrisy as being the art of counterfeiting those qualities, which we might with innocence and safety, be known to want. Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy; affectation part of the chosen trappings of folly."

Read quote 6 likes
Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic
Art

"No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the desire of fond endearments and tender officiousness; and, therefore, no one should think it unnecessary to learn those arts by which friendship may be gained."

Read quote 6 likes
Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic
Art

"The trade of advertising is now so near to perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. But as every art ought to be exercized in due subordination to the public good, I cannot but propose it as a moral question to these masters of the public ear, whether they do not sometimes play too wantonly with our passions."

Read quote 6 likes
Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic
Art

"None but those who have learned the art of subjecting their senses as well as reason to hypothetical systems can be persuaded by the most specious rhetorician that the lots of life are equal; yet it cannot be denied that every one has his peculiar pleasures and vexations, that external accidents operate variously upon different minds, and that no man can exactly judge from his own sensations what another would feel in the same circumstances."

Read quote 6 likes
Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic
Art

"Every man, however hopeless his pretensions may appear, has some project by which he hopes to rise to reputation; some art by which he imagines that the attention of the world will be attracted; some quality, good or bad, which discriminates him from the common herd of mortals, and by which others may be persuaded to love, or compelled to fear him."

Read quote 6 likes
Virginia Woolf Novelist
Art

"if newspapers were written by people whose sole object in writing was to tell the truth about politics and the truth about art we should not believe in war, and we should believe in art."

Read quote 6 likes
Ray Bradbury Author
Art

"In our time the search for extraterrestrial life will eventually change our laws, our religions, our philosophies, our arts, our recreations, as well as our sciences. Space, the mirror, waits for life to come look for itself there."

Read quote 6 likes
Vladimir Nabokov Novelist
Art

"Although I do not care for the slogan "art for art's sake", there can be no question that what makes a work of fiction safe from larvae and rust is not its social importance but its art, only its art."

Read quote 6 likes
Vladimir Nabokov Novelist
Art

"Between the wolf in the tall grass and the wolf in the tall story there is a shimmering go-between. That go-between, that prism, is the art of literature."

Read quote 6 likes
Vladimir Nabokov Novelist
Art

"I do not see any essential difference between abstract and primitive art. Both are simple and sincere. Naturally, we should not generalize in these matters: It is the individual artist that counts."

Read quote 6 likes
Vladimir Nabokov Novelist
Art

"To play safe, I prefer to accept only one type of power: the power of art over trash, the triumph of magic over the brute."

Read quote 6 likes
Voltaire Philosopher, Writer
Art

"We have our arts, the ancients had theirs... We cannot raise obelisks a hundred feet high in a single piece, but our meridians are more exact."

Read quote 6 likes
Voltaire Philosopher, Writer
Art

"But nothing is more estimable than a physician who, having studied nature from his youth, knows the properties of the human body, the diseases which assail it, the remedies which will benefit it, exercises his art with caution, and pays equal attention to the rich and the poor."

Read quote 6 likes
Sarah Bernhardt Actress, Playwright
Art

"What would life be without art? Science prolongs life. To consist of what-eating, drinking, and sleeping? What is the good of living longer if it is only a matter of satisfying the requirements that sustain life? All this is nothing without the charm of art."

Read quote 6 likes
Thomas Adams Author, Historian
Art

"Both in thy private sessions, and the universal assizes, thou shalt be sure of the same Judge, the same jury, the same witnesses, the same verdict. How certain thou art to die, thou knowest; how soon to die, thou knowest not. Measure not thy life with the longest; that were to piece it out with flattery. Thou canst name no living man, not the sickest, which thou art sure shall die before thee."

Read quote 6 likes