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 91 of 1107)

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

Marcus Aurelius Philosopher, Emperor
Art

"What matter and opportunity [for thy activity] art thou avoiding? For what else are all these things, except exercises for the reason, when it has viewed carefully and by examination into their nature the things which happen in life? Persevere then until thou shalt have made these things thy own, as the stomach which is strengthened makes all things its own, as the blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it."

Read quote 12 likes
Art

"One writes out of one thing only - one's own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art."

Read quote 12 likes
George Orwell Writer, Journalist
Art

"When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, 'I am going to produce a work of art.' I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing."

Read quote 12 likes
Art

"Objective painting is not good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense. A hill or tree cannot make a good painting just because it is a hill or tree. It is lines and colors put together so that they may say something."

Read quote 12 likes
Leonardo da Vinci Artist, Scientist, Inventor
Art

"A good painter has two main objects to paint, man and the intention of his soul. The former is easy, the latter hard as he has to represent it by the attitude and movement of the limbs."

Read quote 12 likes
Leonardo da Vinci Artist, Scientist, Inventor
Art

"The art of procreation and the members employed therein are so repulsive, that if it were not for the beauty of the faces and the adornments of the actors and the pent-up impulse, nature would lose the human species."

Read quote 12 likes
James Joyce Novelist, Poet
Art

"The personality of the artist, at first a cry or a cadence or a mood and then a fluid, and lambent narrative, finally refines itself out of existence, impersonalises itself, so to speak. The aesthetic image in the dramatic form is life purified in and reprojected from the human imagination. The mystery of aesthetic like that of material creation is accomplished. The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails."

Read quote 12 likes
Freddie Hubbard Jazz Trumpeter
Art

"Don't make the mistakes I made of not taking care of myself. Please, keeps your chops cool and don't overblow. If you are going to play hard, be sure to warm up. I'd get carried away trying to stay right with the momentum [of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers]. I used to try and play like Coltrane and solo for 30 or 40 choruses. It all caught up with me."

Read quote 12 likes
Lewis Baltz Photographer
Art

"I assumed from the outset that photography was already art, and that I and other people working in photography were artists. I understand now that this was a minority point of view."

Read quote 12 likes
Art

"The highest exercise of imagination is not to devise what has no existence, but rather to perceive what really exists, though unseen by the outward eye-not creation, but insight."

Read quote 12 likes
Friedrich Nietzsche Philosopher, Writer
Art

"Giving style” to one’s character - a great and rare art! It is exercised by those who see all the strengths and weaknesses of their own natures and then comprehend them in an artistic plan until everything appears as art and reason and even weakness delights the eye."

Read quote 12 likes
Friedrich Nietzsche Philosopher, Writer
Art

"The great end of art is to strike the imagination with the power of a soul that refuses to admit defeat even in the midst of a collapsing world."

Read quote 12 likes
Khalil Gibran Poet, Writer
Art

"I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art."

Read quote 12 likes