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 244 of 1107)

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

Catherine Wilson Philosopher
Art

"We need grief as a precursor to emotional refreshment, and so consume it vicariously in somewhat titrated but powerful enough form through engagement with the arts."

Read quote 3 likes
Al Gore Politician
Art

"Sri Chinmoy was a once in a lifetime spiritual leader who touched the lives of millions of people through his teachings, art, athletics, and music. He was a student of peace and he embodied peace. Sri Chinmoy was a great man and his life's work significantly helped to build world harmony and will continue to do so."

Read quote 3 likes
Cesare Pavese Poet, Novelist
Art

"In fact a man in love or one consumed with hatred creates symbols for himself, as a superstitious man does, from a passion of conferring uniqueness on things or persons. A man who knows nothing of symbols is one of Dante's sluggards. This is why art mirrors itself in primitive rites or strong passions, seeking for symbols, revolving round the primitive taste for savagery, for what is irrational (blood and sex)."

Read quote 3 likes
Charles Darwin Naturalist, Geologist
Art

"If I had life to live over again, I would give my life to poetry, to music, to literature, and to art to make life richer and happier. In my youth I steeled myself against them and thought them so much waste."

Read quote 3 likes
Charles Dickens Novelist
Art

"Mrs Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her clenliness more umcomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to godliness, and some people do the same by their religion."

Read quote 3 likes
Art

"The thing about writing or making art is that I'm not thinking about that stuff while I'm doing it. Like the driver's ed kid, in retrospect I see that that was meaningful, and I felt close to him in that way, but at the time I just thought it was fun to draw, and that's all it was. I think that's what's weird about life and about making art. You have to talk about it later. I guess I should be prepared to talk about it now. That is why I'm here. But again, pass."

Read quote 3 likes
Cheryl Strayed Author, Memoirist
Art

"It isn't enough to have had an interesting or hilarious or tragic life. Art isn't anecdote. It's the consciousness we bring to bear on our lives. For what happened in the story to transcend the limits of the personal, it must be driven by the engine of what the story means."

Read quote 3 likes
Chester Brown Cartoonist, Author
Art

"If I can avoid doing freelance work, I prefer to. Not just because it takes me away from drawing comics, but also because it's just annoying having to deal with art editors, and having to read people's articles or books or whatever."

Read quote 3 likes
Chinua Achebe Novelist, Poet
Art

"I do not actually see how art, literature can be anything other that being in that domain of trying to tell us, trying to get us to see what is important in our lives."

Read quote 3 likes
Chinua Achebe Novelist, Poet
Art

"Some people flinch when you talk about art in the context of the needs of society thinking you are introducing something far too common for a discussion of art. Why should art have a purpose and a use? Art shouldn't be concerned with purpose and reason and need, they say. These are improper. But from the very beginning, it seems to me, stories have indeed been meant to be enjoyed, to appeal to that part of us which enjoys good form and good shape and good sound."

Read quote 3 likes
Chris Hesse Musician
Art

"Not really, definitely not from any outside sources. If there was any pressure it was just from ourselves. We just wanted to make sure that what we were doing was right. But, you know, when you're dealing with any kind of art, I think pressure really doesn't help at all. All you can do is give what comes out of you - and that's what we did."

Read quote 3 likes
Chris Kraus Writer and Filmmaker
Art

"Ask anyone who makes a full-length movie that's shown in the art world if they'd rather have a career as a film director or as an artist. Invariably, they'd rather be known as a film director, because that's what they are. But there's not really a system of independent distribution anymore that allows for that, and so the art world has kind of become all-enveloping. It's absorbed all of these disciplines that don't have a home anymore."

Read quote 3 likes
Chris Martin Musician
Art

"I don't think you have to struggle to make good art. I think you have to be passionate to make good art. You have to believe in what you're doing. It just comes from when you lie awake at night."

Read quote 3 likes
Claude Bernard Physiologist
Art

"A contemporary poet has characterized this sense of the personality of art and of the impersonality of science in these words,-'Art is myself; science is ourselves. '"

Read quote 3 likes
Claudia Lee Artist
Art

"I know if I wasn't making music and acting, I would be involved in the performing arts world in some way. I would be either writing and making music for other artists or producing movies."

Read quote 3 likes
Clive James Writer
Art

"Almost 70 years have gone by, and I've still got that feeling when I write... Writing, for me, is still it. It has always been the basis of everything I do. I'm a writer who performs, not a performer who writes. I love the act of writing. It's still a thrill for me."

Read quote 3 likes