Quotes about art page 11
“The excellence of every Art is its intensity.”
John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet
Source: Complete Poems and Selected Letters
“It would be possible, in theory, for life and art to be reversed.”
Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated
Source: Everything Is Illuminated
Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer
Source: Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art
Haruki Murakami book South of the Border, West of the Sun
Variant: People want to be bowled over by something special. Nine times out of ten you can forget, but that tenth time, that peak experience, is what people want. That's what can move the world. That's art.
Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun
Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) American novelist, writer, journalist, political activist
Mammonart - an Essay in Economic Interpretation Ch. 2 Who Owns the Artists? (1925)
“Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.”
Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
From a speech given at the Royal Academy of Art in 1953; quoted in Time magazine (11 May 1954).
Post-war years (1945–1955)
“Mine is not an obedient writing. I think that literature as any art has to be irreverent.”
Reinaldo Arenas (1943–1990) Cuban poet/novelist/playwright
“Only the very greatest art invigorates without consoling.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) British writer and philosopher
“Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television.”
Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician
John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet
"Bright Star" (1819)
Context: Bright star! would I were stedfast as thou art-
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores.
“Treat a work of art like a prince: let it speak to you first.”
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher
“I just do art because I’m ugly and there’s nothing else for me to do.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist
“Art makes nothing happen in a way that makes something happen.”
Ali Smith book How to Be Both
Source: How to Be Both
Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress
The First Revelation, Chapter 5
Context: Also our Lord God shewed that it is full great pleasance to Him that a helpless soul come to Him simply and plainly and homely. For this is the natural yearnings of the soul, by the touching of the Holy Ghost (as by the understanding that I have in this Shewing): God, of Thy Goodness, give me Thyself: for Thou art enough to me, and I may nothing ask that is less that may be full worship to Thee; and if I ask anything that is less, ever me wanteth, — but only in Thee I have all.
And these words are full lovely to the soul, and full near touch they the will of God and His Goodness. For His Goodness comprehendeth all His creatures and all His blessed works, and overpasseth without end. For He is the endlessness, and He hath made us only to Himself, and restored us by His blessed Passion, and keepeth us in His blessed love; and all this of His Goodness.
“Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.”
Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist
Quote from People, 27 September 1976
Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1971 - 1980
“The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions that have been hidden by the answers.”
James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States
“Thou art a dreaming thing,
A fever of thyself.”
John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet
Source: Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne
“Art, art of any kind, shows that folks are trying.”
Walter Kirn book Mission to America
Source: Mission to America
“Last year I abstained
this year I devour
without guilt
which is also an art”
Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer
Source: You are Happy
Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter
Source: Wall and Piece (2005)
“Art is not a handicraft; it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer
“Art isn't meaningless… It is in itself. It isn't in that it tries to make life less so.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Beautiful and Damned
Source: The Beautiful and Damned
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)
“Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth.”
John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic
“A common defect of modern art study is that too many students do not know why they draw.”
Robert Henri (1865–1929) American painter
Henry James (1843–1916) American novelist, short story author, and literary critic
Letter to H.G. Wells (10 July 1915).
Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist
Out of Habit
Song lyrics
Variant: Art is why I get up in the morning; my definition ends there.
You know it doesn't seem fair,
That I'm living for something I can't even define.
And there you are right there, in the mean time.
Ally Carter (1974) American writer
Source: Double Crossed: A Spies and Thieves Story
“Young people want mirrors. Older people want art.”
Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist
Source: Burnt Tongues
“The role of art is to make a world which can be inhabited.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer
As quoted at a Broadway memorial tribute to Saroyan, reported in The New York Times (31 October 1983)
“Making money is art. And working is art. And good business is the best art.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist
Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), p. 92
Context: Business art is the step that comes after Art. I started as a commercial artist, and I want to finish as a business artist. After I did the thing called 'art' or whatever it's called, I went into business art. I wanted to be an Art Businessman or a Business Artist. Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. During the hippies era people put down the idea of business – they'd say 'Money is bad', and 'Working is bad', but making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.
Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care
Variant: What looks like garbage from one angle might be art from another. Maybe ittake a crisis to get to know yourself; maybe you needed to get whacked hard by life before you understood what you wanted out of it.
Source: Handle with Care
“I am thee and thou art me and all of one is the other.”
Ernest Hemingway book For Whom the Bell Tolls
Source: For Whom the Bell Tolls
“Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.”
Stephen Sondheim (1930) American composer and lyricist
“Translation is the art of failure.”
Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish physician and author
Source: Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume I
“Paris is the only city in the world where starving to death is still considered an art.”
Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind
Source: The Shadow of the Wind
Gretel Ehrlich (1946) American writer
Source: The Solace of Open Spaces
Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter
Evening Post, 2004 (taken from "Home Sweet Home - Banksy's Bristol" by Steve Wright)
Other sources
Source: Wall and Piece
“There's no such thing as civilization. The word just means the art of living in cities.”
Roger Zelazny (1937–1995) American speculative fiction writer
Source: The Great Book of Amber
David Sedaris book Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Source: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
“Art is the Mirror of our betrayed ideals.”
Doris Lessing book The Golden Notebook
Source: The Golden Notebook
“The greatest art is to shape the quality of the day.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist
“And when thou art weary I'll find thee a bed,
Of mosses and flowers to pillow thy head.”
John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet
Source: The Complete Poems
Source: Bloodlines
“Philokleon: Let each man exercise the art he knows.”
Aristophanés (-448–-386 BC) Athenian playwright of Old Comedy
tr. Rogers 1909, p. 110 http://books.google.com/books?id=vptfAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Let+each+man+exercise+the+art+he+knows%22 <br class="br">Anonymous ancient proverb, quoted by Aristophanes in Wasps, line 1431 <br class="br">Also later found in Plato (Republic 4.423d, 4.433a-d) and Cicero (Tusc. I.18.41) <br class="br">Misattributed
“Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.”
Jacques Barzun (1907–2012) Historian
Teacher in America (1945)
“I do not have many things that are meaningful to me. Except my doubts and my fears. And my art.”
Chaim Potok book My Name Is Asher Lev
Source: My Name Is Asher Lev
Steven Pressfield (1943) United States Marine
Source: The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles
Christine Feehan American writer
Source: The Twilight Before Christmas