Quotes about art
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“[...] art and commerce are in essence incompatible.”

Marilyn Manson book The Long Hard Road Out of Hell

1990s, The Long Hard Road Out of Hell (1998)

“There are no rules. That is how art is born, how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules. That is what invention is about.”

Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) American artist

“The ideal art, the noblest of art: working with the complexities of life, refusing to simplify, to "overcome" doubt.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

Source: The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates: 1973-1982

Life

“Truly thou art damned, like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side.”

William Shakespeare As You Like It

Source: As You Like It

“Marketing is not the art of finding clever ways to dispose of what you make. It is the art of creating genuine customer value. It is the art of helping your customers become better of.”

Philip Kotler (1931) American marketing author, consultant and professor

Cited in: Robert W. Price (2001), Internet and Business, 2001-2002. p. 117
Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, Implementation and Control, 1967

Way, Help

“All Nature is but art, unknown to thee
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good.”

Alexander Pope An Essay on Man

Source: An Essay on Man

Nature, Universe, Evil, Chance

“The main things which seem to me important on their own account, and not merely as means to other things, are knowledge, art, instinctive happiness, and relations of friendship or affection.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Friendship, Happiness, Knowledge

“A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

“Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them.”

Paul Hawken (1946) American environmentalist

Problem, Leadership

“Less art, more matter”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Hamlet

“Art does not reproduce what we see. It makes us see.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Section I

(de) Kunst gibt nicht das Sichtbare wieder, sondern macht sichtbar.
1916 - 1920, Creative Credo (1920)
Variant: Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible.

“We work in the dark — we do what we can — we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.”

Henry James book The Middle Years

Source: The Middle Years (1893).

Passion, Madness

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”

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

Source: Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest PHilosophers (1926), reprinted in Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books, 1991, ISBN 0-671-73916-6], Ch. II: Aristotle and Greek Science; part VI: Psychology and the Nature of Art: "Artistic creation, says Aristotle, springs from the formative impulse and the craving for emotional expression. Essentially the form of art is an imitation of reality; it holds the mirror up to nature. There is in man a pleasure in imitation, apparently missing in lower animals. Yet the aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance; for this, and not the external mannerism and detail, is their reality.

Appearance

“It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Life, Way, Support, Time

“Art is a corner of creation seen through a temperament.”

Emile Zola (1840–1902) French writer (1840-1902)

“Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Life, Way, Support

“There is no science without fancy and no art without fact.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

Science

“From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain and nourish all the world.”

William Shakespeare Love's Labour's Lost

Source: Love's Labour's Lost

Women, Books, World

“Art is sacred.
Punk rock is freedom.
Expression and right to express is vital.
Anyone can be artistic.”

Kurt Cobain book Journals

Source: Journals

Freedom

“Art is the funnel, as it were, through which spirit is poured into life.”

Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German novelist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate

Life

“Art is my life and my life is art.”

Yoko Ono (1933) Japanese artist, author, and peace activist

Life

“Music, of all the arts, stands in a special region, unlit by any star but its own, and utterly without meaning… except its own.”

Leonard Bernstein book The Joy of Music

Source: The Joy of Music

Music, Star

“No art or learning is to be pursued halfheartedly," His Highness replied, "…and any art worth learning will certainly reward more or less generously the effort made to study it.”

Murasaki Shikibu book The Tale of Genji

Source: Tale of Genji, Ch. 17: Eawase (trans. Royall Tyler)
Source: The Tale of Genji

Effort, Study, Learning

“Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.”

Jean-Luc Godard (1930) French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic

Cited in: Paul Bowden, Telling It Like It Is https://books.google.nl/books?id=w8_p1eGVj8gC&pg=PA182&lpg=PA182&dq=%22Art+attracts+us+only+by+what+it+reveals+of+our+most+secret+self%22+%22jean+luc+godard%22&source=bl&ots=2zIpIhvB_1&sig=uImQSWu8ATehPk0hAhfck-ZowJc&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjwydLuqp_LAhVhDJoKHdrjACcQ6AEIUjAG#v=onepage&q=%22Art%20attracts%20us%20only%20by%20what%20it%20reveals%20of%20our%20most%20secret%20self%22%20%22jean%20luc%20godard%22&f=false, 2011, p. 182 <br class="br">Source: "What Is Cinema?" Les Amis du Cinéma (Paris, October 1, 1952).

Secret

“Literature, at least good literature, is science tempered with the blood of art. Like architecture or music.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Angel's Game

Source: The Angel's Game

Music, Literature, Science

“The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Beauty, Gratitude, Beauty

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

Borís Pasternak (1890–1960) Russian writer

People, Literature

“Art is a way of survival.”

Yoko Ono (1933) Japanese artist, author, and peace activist

Way

“Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Love, Music, Nature, Beauty

“O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o'er my head
As is a winged messenger of heaven”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

Angels, Night

“The mother art is architecture. Without an architecture of our own we have no soul of our own civilization.”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

Soul

“Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Actually a statement by American advertising executive and author Howard W. Newton (1903–1951); attributions to Isaac are relatively recent, those to Howard date at least to Sylva Vol. 1-3 (1945), p. 57 https://books.google.com/books?id=-QUcAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Tact+is+the+knack+of+making+a+point+without+making+an+enemy%22&dq=%22Tact+is+the+knack+of+making+a+point+without+making+an+enemy%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jtmwVJrZN43ksATPmID4BA&ved=0CNkBEOgBMCQ, where it is cited to an earlier publication in Redbook. <br class="br">Misattributed <br class="br">Variant: Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy. <br class="br">Variant: Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.

“Thoughts are free and subject to no rule. On them rests the freedom of man, and they tower above the light of nature… create a new heaven, a new firmament, a new source of energy from which new arts flow.”

Paracelsus (1493–1541) Swiss physician and alchemist

Nature, Freedom, Light

“What art seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
Context: Art is Individualism, and Individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. Therein lies its immense value. For what it seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine.

“life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one”

Stella Adler (1901–1992) American actress and teaching coach

Life, Soul

“Art is the proper task of life.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Life

“I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

People

“Art is never finished, only abandoned.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Variant: Art is never finished, only abandoned.

“Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

“Art is not a thing; it is a way.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Way

“The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)

Change

“To move is to stir, and to be valiant is to stand; therefore, if tou art mov'd, thou runst away. (To be angry is to move, to be brave is to stand still. Therefore, if you're angry, you'll run away.)”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

“Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Life, Music

“Science fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

"The Imagination of Disaster" from Against Interpretation and Other Essays (1966), p. 212
Against Interpretation and Other Essays (1966)

Science

“Have you killed anyone?” she asked quickly.
“What? Did you miss what I said, about turning murder into
an art form?”
“But you haven’t actually killed anyone yet, have you? I read
your file.”
He glowered. “Technically, yeah, all right, maybe I haven’t”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Playing with Fire

Reading

“One must give value to their existence by behaving as if ones very existence were a work of art.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

“The final revelation is that Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art.”

Oscar Wilde book The Decay of Lying

The Decay of Lying (1889)

Beauty, Lying

“Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Zen Masters : The Wisdom of Frank Zappa (2003)

“To truly hate is an art one learns with time.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Hate, Learning, Time

“It's the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Source: Miscellaneous Aphorisms; The Soul of Man

Life

“Art is essentially the affirmation, the blessing, and the deification of existence.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

“The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Beauty

“Art like life is an open secret.”

Lawrence Durrell The Alexandria Quartet

Source: The Alexandria Quartet

Life, Secret

“What is fair in men, passes away, but not so in art.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), IX The Practice of Painting

Men

“Bloody thou art, bloody will be thy end;
Shame serves thy life and doth thy death attend.”

William Shakespeare Richard III

Source: Richard III

Life, Death

“A great friendship was like a great work of art, he thought. It took time and attention, and a spark of something that was impossible to describe. It was a happy, lucky accident, finding some kindred part of yourself in a total stranger.”

Elise Broach Masterpiece

Source: Masterpiece

Friendship, Happiness, Time, Parting

“Whoever uses the spirit that is
in him creatively is an artist. To
make living itself an art, that is
the goal.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Source: Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (1957), p. 400

“It may be that until now there has been no more potent means for beautifying man himself than piety: it can turn man into so much art, surface, play of colors, graciousness that his sight no longer makes one suffer.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Beyond Good and Evil

Source: Beyond Good and Evil

Color, Suffering

“O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Juliet, Act II, scene ii.
Source: Romeo and Juliet (1595)

“In Art, man reveals himself and not his objects.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

“Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated (1894)

World, Personality, Sad

“The highest point at which human life and art meet is in the ordinary. To look down on the ordinary is to despise what you can't have. Show me a man who fears being ordinary, and I'll show you a man who is not yet a man.”

Yukio Mishima book Thirst for Love

Source: Thirst for Love

Life, Fear

“Film is not analysis, it is the agitation of mind; cinema comes from the country fair and the circus, not from art and academicism.”

Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director

Herzog on Herzog (2002)

Country

“Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Life

“Now art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
Context: Art is this intense form of individualism that makes the public try to exercise over it an authority that is as immoral as it is ridiculous, and as corrupting as it is contemptible. It is not quite their fault. The public have always, and in every age, been badly brought up. They are continually asking Art to be popular, to please their want of taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what they have been told before, to show them what they ought to be tired of seeing, to amuse them when they feel heavy after eating too much, and to distract their thoughts when they are wearied of their own stupidity. Now Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.

“For where thou art, there is the world itself,
With every several pleasure in the world,
And where thou art not, desolation.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Source: King Henry VI, Part 2

Pleasure, World

“But many of us seek community solely to escape the fear of being alone. Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.”

Bell Hooks book All About Love: New Visions

Source: All About Love: New Visions

Love, Fear, Communication

“Alltami (n.)

The ancient art of being able to balance the hot and cold shower taps.”

Douglas Adams book The Meaning of Liff

Source: The Deeper Meaning of Liff

“To me, the extraordinary aspect of martial arts lies in its simplicity. The easy way is also the right way, and martial arts is nothing at all special; the closer to the true way of martial arts, the less wastage of expression there is.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Way

“Honesty: The best of all the lost arts.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“When bankers get together for dinner, they discuss Art. When artists get together for dinner, they discuss Money”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Money

“In a work of art, chaos must shimmer through the veil of order.”

Novalis (1772–1801) German poet and writer

“Really I don't like human nature unless all candied over with art”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Source: The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume Four: 1931-1935

Nature

“The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Future

“More matter with less art.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

“To encourage literature and the arts is a duty which every good citizen owes to his country.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Literature, Country

“Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Truth, Nature, Reality

“It does not follow, that because a particular work of art succeeds in charming us, its creator also deserves our admiration.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

“Sex and art are the same thing.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Sex

“All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.”

Federico Fellini (1920–1993) Italian filmmaker

On the autobiographical nature of his films, in The Atlantic (December 1965)

“The art of love… is largely the art of persistence.”

Albert Ellis (1913–2007) American psychologist

Love, Wise, Deep, Cute

“If you sacrifice your art because of some woman, or some man, or for some color, or for some wealth, you can't be trusted.”

Miles Davis (1926–1991) American jazz musician

Color, Wealth

“The art of our necessities is strange
That can make vile things precious.”

William Shakespeare King Lear

Source: King Lear

“In his early twenties, a man started collecting paintings, many of which later became famous: Picasso, Van Gogh, and others. Over the decades he amassed a wonderful collection. Eventually, the man’s beloved son was drafted into the military and sent to Vietnam, where he died while trying to save his friend. About a month after the war ended, a young man knocked on the devastated father’s door. “Sir,” he said, “I know that you like great art, and I have brought you something not very great.” Inside the package, the father found a portrait of his son. With tears running down his cheeks, the father said, “I want to pay you for this.ℍ “No,” the young man replied, “he saved my life. You don’t owe me anything.ℍ The father cherished the painting and put it in the center of his collection. Whenever people came to visit, he made them look at it. When the man died, his art collection went up for sale. A large crowd of enthusiastic collectors gathered. First up for sale was the amateur portrait. A wave of displeasure rippled through the crowd. “Let’s forget about that painting!” one said. “We want to bid on the valuable ones,” said another. Despite many loud complaints, the auctioneer insisted on starting with the portrait. Finally, the deceased man’s gardener said, “I’ll bid ten dollars.ℍ Hearing no further bids, the auctioneer called out, “Sold for ten dollars!” Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. But then the auctioneer said, “And that concludes the auction.” Furious gasps shook the room. The auctioneer explained, “Let me read the stipulation in the will: “Sell the portrait of my son first, and whoever buys it gets the entire art collection. Whoever takes my son gets everything.ℍ It’s the same way with God Almighty. Whoever takes his Son gets everything.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Source: Through the Year with Jimmy Carter: 366 Daily Meditations from the 39th President

Life, God, War, People

“Thou art a very ragged Wart.”

William Shakespeare Henry IV, Part 2

Source: Henry IV, Part 2

“Art is the queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

World, Communication, Knowledge, Science

“What I have in mind is that art may be bad, good or indifferent, but, whatever adjective is used, we must call it art, and bad art is still art in the same way that a bad emotion is still an emotion.”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

1951 - 1968, The Creative Act', 1957
Context: I want to clarify our understanding of the word 'art' – to be sure, without an attempt to a definition. What I have in mind is that art may be bad, good or indifferent, but, whatever adjective is used, we must call it art, and bad art is still art in the same way as a bad emotion is still an emotion.
Therefore, when I refer to 'art coefficient', it will be understood that I refer not only to great art, but I am trying to describe the subjective mechanism which produces art in a raw state – 'à l'état brute' – bad, good or indifferent.

Way, Indifference