Quotes about art

„It is better to be a live jackal than a dead lion--for jackals, not men. Men who have the moral courage to fight intelligently for freedom have the best prospects of avoiding the fate of both live jackals and dead lions. Survival is not the be-all and end-all of a life worthy of man. Sometimes the worst we can know about a man is that he has survived. Those who say life is worth living at any price have already written for themselves an epitaph of infamy, for there is no cause and no person they will not betray to stay alive. Man's vocation should be the use of the arts of intelligence in behalf of human freedom.“

—  Sidney Hook American philosopher 1902 - 1989

Out of Step (1985)

„Every art expression is rooted fundamentally in the personality and temperament of the artist.“

—  Hans Hofmann American artist 1880 - 1966

Quote in: 'Hans Hofmann' by Cynthia Goodman, in Portfolio (January - February 1981), p. 47
1970s and later

„Any scientific treatment of the history of art must encompass not only the concepts of ‘social class’ and ‘class struggle, but also all the terms which describe particular social groups such as social category, autonomous fraction of a class, fraction of a class, and social stratum.“

—  Nicos Hadjinicolaou Art historian of Marxist-methodology and historian of visual ideology; El Greco scholar and Professor, El Greco Centre,… 1938

Art History And Class Struggle (1978)

„What artists call posterity is the posterity of the work of art.“

—  Marcel Proust, book In Search of Lost Time

Ce qu'on appelle la postérité, c'est la postérité de l'œuvre.
Source: In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol II: Within a Budding Grove (1919), Ch. I: "Madame Swann at Home"

„Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist“

—  René Magritte Belgian surrealist artist 1898 - 1967

„Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.“

—  Oscar Wilde, book The Decay of Lying

The Decay of Lying (1889)

„Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.“

—  Aristotle Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy -384 - -321 BC

„Scientific and rational enlightenment is the art of expressing complex knowledge in simple and engaging words.“

—  Zafar Mirzo 1972

„The noblest art is that of making others happy“

—  P.T. Barnum American showman and businessman 1810 - 1891

„Authentic marketing is not the art of selling what you make but knowing what to make! It is the art of identifying and understanding customer needs and creating solutions that deliver satisfaction to the customers, profits to the producers, and benefits for the stakeholders. Market innovation is gained by creating customer satisfaction through product innovation, product quality, and customer service. It these are absent, no amount of advertising, sales promotion, or salesmanship can compensate.“

—  Philip Kotler American marketing author, consultant and professor 1931

As cited in: Jay Conrad Levinson (1999), Mastering Guerrilla Marketing. p. 218
Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, Implementation and Control, 1967

„Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship … To restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privileges to others will constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic and have no place in a republic … The Constitution of this republic should make the special privilege for medical freedom as well as religious freedom.“

—  Benjamin Rush American physician, educator, author 1745 - 1813

As quoted by Terry Dorian, Total Health and Restoration: A 180-Day Journey (2002), p. 49. Other versions include:
[The] Constitution of this republic should make special provisions for medical freedom as well as religious freedom ... To restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privilege to another will constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic. They are fragments of monarchy and have no place in a republic. [in Robert L. Schwartz, "Laetrile: The Battle Moves into the Courtroom," American Bar Association Journal, February 1979, p. 226, no citation given]
Unless we put medical freedom into the constitution the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship and force people who wish doctors and treatment of their own choice to submit to only what the dictating outfit offers.
Laws restricting the practice of the healing art to one class of physicians and denying equal privileges to others, constitutes the Bastilles of Medicine, for they prevent progress. They are relics of Monarchy, and therefore have no place in a Republic. [in Thomas Morgan, "National Board of Health. The Other Side of the Question, As It Appears to Thomas Morgan," Youngstown Vindicator, 27 January 1911, p. 6]
This quote is often cited with regards to Rush, and can rarely be found attributed to his autobiography, but does not exist in that book http://books.google.com/books?id=EkTM9Kn9F4IC&q=%22into+the+constitution%22#v=onepage&q=%22into%20the%20constitution%22&f=false http://hpy.sagepub.com/content/16/1/89.abstract. The quote contains words and phrasing that seem anachronistic to late 18th century America.
Misattributed

„Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.“

—  Borís Pasternak Russian writer 1890 - 1960

„While the others had got married and moved out to suburbia, I had stayed in London and got into the arts scene through friends like Robert Fraser and Barry Miles and papers like The International Times. We opened the Indica gallery with John Dunbar, Peter Asher and people like that. I heard about people like John Cage, and that he’d just performed a piece of music called 4’33” (which is completely silent) during which if someone in the audience coughed he would say, ‘See?’ Or someone would boo and he’d say, ‘See? It’s not silence—it’s music.’ I was intrigued by all of that. So these things started to be part of my life. I was listening to Stockhausen; one piece was all little plink-plonks and interesting ideas. Perhaps our audience wouldn’t mind a bit of change, we thought, and anyway, tough if they do! We only ever followed our own noses—most of the time, anyway. ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ was one example of developing an idea.“

—  Paul McCartney English singer-songwriter and composer 1942

The Beatles Anthology (2000), p. 212

„Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.“

—  Claude Monet French impressionist painter 1840 - 1926

„I can find inspiration from the Renaissance to the contemporary artists, but definitely the most influential movement in my career has been Street Art.“

—  Clandestine Culture American artist 1970

The importance of Street Art comes from the fact that this art is available to everyone anywhere, is made from any media using any technique. Street Art lets you do whatever you want in the way you want and do it without asking anybody. This freedom is what makes Street Art unique.
http://artdistricts.com/clandestine-culture-between-street-art-and-social-activism/

„This freedom is what makes Street Art unique“

—  Clandestine Culture American artist 1970

http://artdistricts.com/clandestine-culture-between-street-art-and-social-activism/
Context: I can find inspiration from the Renaissance to the contemporary artists, but definitely the most influential movement in my career has been Street Art. The importance of Street Art comes from the fact that this art is available to everyone anywhere, is made from any media using any technique. Street Art lets you do whatever you want in the way you want and do it without asking anybody. This freedom is what makes Street Art unique.

„Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!“

—  Percy Bysshe Shelley, book Ode to the West Wind

St. I
Ode to the West Wind (1819)

„Art cannot be modern. Art is primordially eternal.“

—  Egon Schiele austrian painter 1890 - 1918

„“These accomplishments are what make a home comfortable.”
Melody said, “I thought that a home was made comfortable by those who live in it and their regard for one another.”
“This is true, Miss Melody, but if one presumes the affection which should be in all homes, then those homes which are most comfortable are also those which possess an understanding and appreciation for the arts.”“

—  Mary Robinette Kowal American writer and puppeteer 1969

Source: Shades of Milk and Honey (2010), Chapter 4 (p. 54)