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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"In a play, certainly, the subject is of more importance than in any other work of art. Infelicity, triviality, vagueness of subject, may be outweighed in a poem, a novel, or a picture, by charm of manner, by ingenuity of execution; but in a drama the subject is of the essence of the work-it is the work. If it is feeble, the work can have no force; if it is shapeless, the work must be amorphous."
"The only success worth one's powder was success in the line of one's idiosyncrasy... what was talent but the art of being completely whatever one happened to be?"
"Why change the world? Change worlds!"
"Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life."
"The practice of any art demands more than 'mere savoir faire'. One must not only be in love with what one does, one must also know how to make love. In love self is obliterated. Only the beloved counts."
"I don't like to treat a piece of clothing like an object of art because I don't consider myself an artist. I'm a designer."
"I think that many things that go on in an art school have a tendency to undermine confidence, and that shouldn't be part of the ballgame, ever."
"That's the motivation of an artist - to seek attention of some kind."
"The whole of Paris is a vast university of Art, Literature and Music... it is worth anyone's while to dally here for years. Paris is a seminar, a post-graduate course in everything."
"I don't really write for fun; it's not an enjoyable experience. For me, art, or whatever the hell it is I do, has always been a refuge from that which makes me want to tear my lungs out. That's why I play like I play; I'm not into entertainment."
"Being an artist is dragging your innermost feelings out, giving a piece of yourself, no matter in which art form, in which medium."
"We are misery-making machines! Homo sapiens has perfected the art of causing suffering. Pain is humankind's collective GDP."
"Art is the child of Nature."
"In the elder days of art Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part, For the Gods are everywhere"
"Many have genius, but, wanting art, are forever dumb. The two must go together to form the great poet, painter, or sculptor."
"For the structure that we raise, Time is with materials filled; Our to-days and yesterdays Are the blocks with which we build."
"Ah, to build, to build! That is the noblest of all the arts."
"One thing a man must have: either a naturally light disposition or a disposition lightened by art and knowledge."
"When art dresses itself in the most worn-out material it is most easily recognized as art."
"The world is a work of art that gives birth to itself."
