"We live amid surfaces, and the true art of life is to skate well on them"
Read quote
5 likes
Art quotes
Art
22.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Topics related to Art
Browse quotes that often appear alongside art — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Art quotes (page 207 of 1107)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Art is the path of the creator to his work."
Read quote
5 likes
"Every genuine work of art has as much reason for being as the earth and the sun."
Read quote
5 likes
"Painting seems to be to the eye what dancing is to the limbs. When that has educated the frame to self-possession, to nimbleness,to grace, the steps of the dancing-master are better forgotten; so painting teaches me the splendor of color and the expression of form, and as I see many pictures and higher genius in the art, I see the boundless opulence of the pencil, the indifferency in which the artist stands free to choose out of the possible forms."
Read quote
5 likes
"Perpetual modernism is the measure of merit in every work of art."
Read quote
5 likes
"In eloquence, the great triumphs of the art are when the orator is lifted above himself; when consciously he makes himself the mere tongue of the occasion and the hour, and says what cannot but be said. Hence the term "abandonment" to describe the self- surrender of the orator. Not his will, but the principle on which he is horsed, the great connection and crisis of events, thunder in the ear of the crowd."
Read quote
5 likes
"How often we must remember the art of the surgeon, which, in replacing the broken bone, contents itself with releasing the parts from false position; they fly into place by the action of the muscles. On this art of nature all our arts rely."
Read quote
5 likes
"Spartans, stoics, heroes, saints and gods use short and positive speech."
Read quote
5 likes
"I thank God that you know the art of tearing yourself apart - I mean the way to humble yourself truly by recognizing and realizing your faults. You are right in believing yourself to be as you describe and to be most unsuitable for any kind of duty; it is on this foundation that Our Lord will base the execution of His plans for you."
Read quote
5 likes
"How rich art is, if one can only remember what one has seen, one is never empty of thoughts or truly lonely, never alone."
Read quote
5 likes
"Of course my moods change, but the average is serenity. I have a firm faith in art, a firm confidence in its being a powerful stream which carries a man to a harbor, though he himself must do his bit too; at all events, I think it such a great blessing when a man has found his work that I cannot count myself among the unfortunate. I mean, I may be in certain relatively great difficulties, and there may be gloomy days in my life, but I shouldn't like to be counted among the unfortunate, nor would it be correct if I were."
Read quote
5 likes
"I can't work without a model. I won't say I turn my back on nature ruthlessly in order to turn a study into a picture, arranging the colors, enlarging and simplifying; but in the matter of form I am too afraid of departing from the possible and the true."
Read quote
5 likes
"To have the management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a considerable degree by experience and habitual exercise... Let him take a course of chemistry, or a course of rope-dance, or a course of any thing to which he is inclined at the time. Let him contrive to have as many retreats for his mind as he can, as many things to which it can fly from itself."
Read quote
5 likes
"Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause awhile from letters, to be wise."
Read quote
5 likes
"An epithet or metaphor drawn from nature ennobles art; an epithet or metaphor drawn from art degrades nature."
Read quote
5 likes
"It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy unenvied, to be healthful without physic, and secure without a guard; to obtain from the bounty of nature, what the great and wealthy are compelled to procure by the help of artists and attendants, of flatterers and spies."
Read quote
5 likes
"Some reviewers have read this as cynicism but I don't see it that way. When I say "I am so sick / of pretending to be me," it's exhaustion at the everyday performance, in life, in art, even in our most intimate encounters."
Read quote
5 likes
"A strange thing has happened - while all the other arts were born naked, this, the youngest, has been born fully-clothed. It can say everything before it has anything to say. It is as if the savage tribe, instead of finding two bars of iron to play with, had found scattering the seashore fiddles, flutes, saxophones, trumpets, grand pianos by Erhard and Bechstein, and had begun with incredible energy, but without knowing a note of music, to hammer and thump upon them all at the same time."
Read quote
5 likes
"... if we can imagine the art of fiction come alive and standing in our midst, she would undoubtedly bid us to break her and bullyher, as well as honour and love her, for so her youth is renewed and her sovereignty assured."
Read quote
5 likes
"This is Art holding a Mirror up to Life. That’s why everything is exactly the wrong way around."
Read quote
5 likes