"Try to keep the rebel artist alive in you, no matter how attractive or exhausting the temptation."
Read quote
3 likes
Artist quotes
Artist
8.6K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Topics related to Artist
Browse quotes that often appear alongside artist — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Artist quotes (page 75 of 431)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Artists and writers have to understand and live the truth that what we are doing is nourishing the world."
Read quote
3 likes
"This has been my life for many years; one role feeds the other. It is a joy to be an artist, but it doesn't mean very much unless that work is somehow useful in some way and contributes to others."
Read quote
3 likes
"To be in any way a positive contribution, that's all anybody wants to be. It's all I've ever wanted to be. I wanted to be an artist, be a mother. You want to feel that in your life you've been of use, in whatever way that comes out."
Read quote
3 likes
"I didn't die young. So I am very lucky. There are other artists and people that didn't survive certain things... people can imagine that I did the most dangerous, and I did the worst... for many reasons, I shouldn't be here."
Read quote
3 likes
"I'm somebody who works within Cambodia, with Cambodians. I work alongside the artists and society to work from within, so that is the focus, and from that I hope everybody who believes in democracy, in certain freedoms, will get louder, will grow their voices."
Read quote
3 likes
"Artists have a tremendous purpose in society, which is to continually expose, to continually challenge and to never stop producing. To never stop creating, no matter what."
Read quote
3 likes
"I am a woman and I am from Mexico, that is true. I am an artist, that is also true. When I work, I hope I'm not a woman from Mexico but an artist in body and spirit."
Read quote
3 likes
"You really can't be a good artist if you can't say what you really feel. And people may be offended, but, you know, that's how you feel, and that is your right, and that is your gift as well."
Read quote
3 likes
"Some of the greatest artists did their best work when they got political."
Read quote
3 likes
"The artist produces for the liberation of his soul."
Read quote
3 likes
"It is not for nothing that artists have called their works the children of their brains and likened the pains of production to the pains of childbirth."
Read quote
3 likes
"The artist can within limits make what he likes of his life... It is only the artist, and maybe the criminal, who can make his own."
Read quote
3 likes
"It is a beautiful truth that all men contain something of the artist in them. And perhaps it is the case that the greatest artists live and die, the world and themselves alike ignorant what they possess."
Read quote
3 likes
"Every time I'm in the studio, I always think of my professor in undergrad. He was like, "There are so many artists in the world. If you're going to be an artist, make sure you have something to say. Don't just be an artist and put out bullshit. Have something to say." I guess that would be my philosophy and something I think about all the time. Every day when I'm in the studio I hear him and I see him. I remember him saying it in class. So that's something that I always want to make sure I have: I'm saying something with the work."
Read quote
3 likes
"They call them performance artists, but they shouldn't be making an album. They should just be dancers. I don't know, I'm a musical snob. I feel like if you're going to record music and you're going to be a singer, you have to be able to sing."
Read quote
3 likes
"People are getting record deals and they can barely sing. We have these new terms for artists that can dance, but they can't sing."
Read quote
3 likes
"The painter who is content with the praise of the world for what does not satisfy himself, is not an artist, but an artisan; for though his reward be only praise, his pay is that of a mechanic."
Read quote
3 likes
"What does it mean to be an American today? The question of that is always pointing at now. It allows someone to say what lens that will be through. A lot of my work has been about identity in different ways. Part of that for me falls into the question of gender identity certainly but also about what it means to be an American theater artist."
Read quote
3 likes
"The revolt against individualism naturally calls artists severely to account, because the artist is of all men the most individual; those who were not have been long forgotten."
Read quote
3 likes