Quotes about art
page 58

Jason Tanamor photo
Robert M. Pirsig photo

“A study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself.”

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/books/robert-pirsig-dead-wrote-zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance.html

Isocrates photo
Hermann Hesse photo
Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

“Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)
John Wooden photo
Chulpan Khamatova photo
Frithjof Schuon photo
Thomas Jefferson photo

“The art and mystery of banks… is established on the principle that 'private debts are a public blessing.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

That the evidences of those private debts, called bank notes, become active capital, and aliment the whole commerce, manufactures, and agriculture of the United States. Here are a set of people, for instance, who have bestowed on us the great blessing of running in our debt about two hundred millions of dollars, without our knowing who they are, where they are, or what property they have to pay this debt when called on; nay, who have made us so sensible of the blessings of letting them run in our debt, that we have exempted them by law from the repayment of these debts beyond a give proportion (generally estimated at one-third). And to fill up the measure of blessing, instead of paying, they receive an interest on what they owe from those to whom they owe; for all the notes, or evidences of what they owe, which we see in circulation, have been lent to somebody on an interest which is levied again on us through the medium of commerce. And they are so ready still to deal out their liberalities to us, that they are now willing to let themselves run in our debt ninety millions more, on our paying them the same premium of six or eight per cent interest, and on the same legal exemption from the repayment of more than thirty millions of the debt, when it shall be called for.
ME 13:420
1810s, Letters to John Wayles Eppes (1813)

Prevale photo

“In art amuse emotions is a duty, to succeed is a plesure.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) ​In arte suscitare emozioni è un dovere, riuscirci un piacere.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“I carefully follow your creativity expressed by your soul, trying to capture every possible emotion or sensation of yours. Your essence is pure art given as a gift to the whole world.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Seguo con attenzione la tua creatività espressa dalla tua anima, cercando di catturarne ogni tua possibile emozione o sensazione. La tua essenza, è pura arte resa in dono al mondo intero.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“Art is work. It is the ability to give life to the emotions of others through one's talent.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) L'arte è lavoro. È la facoltà di dar vita alle emozioni altrui tramite il proprio talento.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“In life you always fight for what you love to do. Defending your art is your duty.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) ​Nella vita combatti sempre per ciò che ami fare. Difendere la tua arte è il tuo dovere.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“Having fun is an art and the secret is playing DJ.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

(it) Divertirsi è un'arte e il segreto è giocare DJ.

“One of the peculiar characteristics of music is that it is both the most natural and least artificial of the arts, and as well the most complicated and subtle.”

Walter Raymond Spalding (1865–1962) American music pedagogue and author

Page 3 https://books.google.com/books?id=pQARAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA3.
Music: An Art and a Language (1920), Preliminary Considerations (Ch. I)

“Of all the arts, music makes the most direct appeal to the emotions and to those shadowy, but real portions of our being called the imagination and the soul. Emotion is as indispensible to music as love to religion.”

Walter Raymond Spalding (1865–1962) American music pedagogue and author

Page 3 https://books.google.com/books?id=pQARAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA3.
Music: An Art and a Language (1920), Preliminary Considerations (Ch. I)

“The work of the liturgy transcends us because it is Christ’s work, and it is our privilege to participate. This work is an art, sanctioned by the Church, which is Christ’s Body. In the liturgy we present what He has intended to make lasting for the salvation of mankind until all is consummated.”

Glen Provost (1949) Catholic bishop

Bishop Provost’s Chrism Mass Homily for 2021 http://www.lcdiocese.org/the-diocese/our-bishop/homilies/3150-bishop-provost-s-chrism-mass-homily-for-2021 (31 March 2021)

Wong Kar-wai photo

“It was my dream! I wanted to know what exactly martial arts is. When you look at martial arts films, the later ones became more and more exaggerated. It’s like, wow, is martial arts only a show?”

Wong Kar-wai (1958) Hong Kong screenwriter, film producer and film director

"The Demonstrative Wong Kar Wai" in Interview Magazine (22 August 2013) https://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/wong-kar-wai-the-grandmaster

Scott Wagner photo

“Going to trade school, that’s a good honest job, working as a machinist or at a steel plant. It seems like we forgot about that. People get massively indebted going to liberals arts schools and this is how we can deal with our student debt problem too.”

Scott Wagner (1955) American politician

Exclusive–Scott Wagner on Running for PA Governor: ‘My Campaign Is About’ Leadership and Solving Problems https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/02/13/exclusive-scott-wagner-on-running-for-pa-governor-my-campaign-is-about-leadership-and-solving-problems/ (13 February 2018)

Simu Liu photo

“We have a lot of heroes. We have Asian heroes, we have Asian American heroes, men, women, of all ages, and not all of them do martial arts. But that doesn't mean that they don't have their own arcs, their own stories, their own subtleties and nuances. And I think that's what's important.”

Simu Liu (1989) Chinese-born Canadian actor

Source: "Simu Liu, the Asian Marvel superhero emerging at a critical time" in NBC Asian America (2 June 2021) https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/simu-liu-asian-marvel-superhero-emerging-critical-time-rcna1071

“Patients are not consumers, but sick, scared, vulnerable. Doctors and nurses are practicing a calling, a vocation, a craft and an art.”

Victoria Sweet Physician

San Francisco Catholic https://catholic-sf.org/news/slow-medicine

Elizabeth Falkner photo

“I love cooking and learning more every day in cooking. I look at food as I would languages or art and my vocabulary and palate keep expanding. I continue to do pastry and have been doing savory all along and it's a beautiful marriage.”

Elizabeth Falkner (1966) American television chef

discussing her interest in both pastry and savory cooking
Justluxe Article - Interview by Sara Cardoza - Top Chef Interviews: Elizabeth Falkner https://www.justluxe.com/lifestyle/dining/feature-1844413.php - October 2012 - Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20211003105247/https://www.justluxe.com/lifestyle/dining/feature-1844413.php

Imbolo Mbue photo

“I did not do it because I wanted to one day have a book deal…I did it because I loved it, and I enjoyed it, and I did not know where it was going to take me. I did it out of love of the art.”

Imbolo Mbue (1982) Cameroonian writer

On why she wrote Behold the Dreamers in “Imbolo Mbue on Empathy and the Price of the American Dream” https://lithub.com/imbolo-mbue-on-empathy-and-the-price-of-the-american-dream/ in Lit Hub (2017 Jun 1)

Prevale photo

“Find that person who owns the art of excited you.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Trova quella persona che possiede l'arte di emozionarti.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“All over the world, for those who are part of it, music, entertainment and art are a work of emotions: be grateful.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) In tutto il mondo, per chi ne fa parte, musica, intrattenimento ed arte sono un'opera di emozioni: siatene grati.
Source: prevale.net

Herbert Read photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Jet Li photo

“I think the most important is when I was young, I learnt martial arts, that is my special key. I can use my unique martial arts in the film. But after a few years, I really want to do something different... like using martial arts to talk about peace.”

Jet Li (1963) Chinese martial artist and actor

As quoted in Jet Li Interview Transcript https://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/01/29/talkasia.li.script/ in CNN (January 29, 2003)

“I’ve gone through so many dark periods of my life, but my art has always been there. I firmly believe in this way of living, and I hope to die like this.”

Tan Kheng Hua (1963) Singaporean actress

"Tan Kheng Hua Talks ‘Kung Fu,’ ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ and Living for Her Art" in Observer (22 April 2021) https://observer.com/2021/04/tan-kheng-hua-kung-fu-interview-crazy-rich-asians/

Northrop Frye photo
James Branch Cabell photo
Chulpan Khamatova photo

“I would probably say that music is one of the most expressive art forms for me. Of course, I don’t perform professionally, though it does play a huge role: it helps me think differently and want to go on living.”

Chulpan Khamatova (1975) Russian actress

As quoted in "An interview with Chulpan Khamatova" in Mariinsky Theatre (28 February 2012) https://www.mariinsky.ru/en/news1/interview1/interview_with_chulpan_khamatova/

Frithjof Schuon photo

“Sacred art helps man find his own center, that kernel whose nature is to love God.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2007, Spiritual Perspectives and Human Facts, World Wisdom, 28, 978-1-933316-42-0]
Spiritual life, Sacred art

James Franco photo

“I'm gay in my art and straight in my life.”

James Franco (1978) American actor, writer, producer, director, and teacher

fourtwonine magazine Interview (2015)

“Renaissance art has always been my favourite subject. The realism involved in it is a challenge for me not only as an artist but also as a priest. Subjects involving human beings have always been my core area of interest.”

Nude figures, Mizo bishop's tribute to God https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/guwahati/Nude-figures-Mizo-bishops-tribute-to-God/articleshow/4834560.cms?referral=PM (July 29, 2009)

Mary Baker Eddy photo

“I would no more quarrel with a man because of his religion than I would because of his art.”

Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910) religious leader

Source: The First Church of Christ Scientist and Miscellany, p. 270

Kuruvilla Pandikattu photo

“Time (kaal) is the art (kala) of being.”

Kuruvilla Pandikattu (1957) Indian philosopher

Source: The Wisest of All Times is Now! p. 28.

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“We live amid surfaces, and the true art of life is to skate well on them.”

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Experience

Jiang Qing photo

“Because of the nature of my work and because I was suffering from a grave ailment, my doctors advised me to take part in cultural activities to improve the balance of my sense of hearing and sense of sight. Thus, I came into contact with some literature and art.”

Jiang Qing (1914–1991) Chinese political figure and wife of Mao Zedong

Source: Speech at the Reception for the Representatives of the Beijing Workers Propaganda Team and the People's Liberation Army Propaganda Team (14 September 1968)

Carl von Clausewitz photo
Reza Goodary photo

“Martial arts polish my soul.”

Reza Goodary (1988) Mixed martial artist

Source: I am always thirsty for struggle and I will never get tired of training and competition. Martial arts refine my soul and brighten my being. Martial arts have changed the course of my life over the years. In a word, martial arts are everything to me. https://www.iribnews.ir/00DSMD IRIB News, (August 31, 2021)

Arundhati Roy photo
Mirza Tahir Ahmad photo

“If you love the art, you must love the artist. If you love the Creation, you must love the Creator.”

Mirza Tahir Ahmad (1928–2003) caliph of the Ahmadiyya

citation needed

Stephanie Okereke Linus photo

“Art has a huge role to play in society and can be a catalyst for change and positivity if used in the right way.”

Stephanie Okereke Linus (1982) Nigerian Actress and singer

Source: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/exclusive-interview-with-_37_b_11591236 During an interview (December 6 2017)

Aloysius Murwito photo

“During the festival we appreciate how big is God´s gift to Asmat people. They can preserve their identity through their woodcarvings. Their carving is art that reflects fundamental beliefs passed down from generation to generation.”

Aloysius Murwito (1950) Indonesian catholic priest

Source: Church Continues To Preserve Asmat Culture Through Art Festival https://www.ucanews.com/story-archive/?post_name=/2006/10/30/church-continues-to-preserve-asmat-culture-through-art-festival&post_id=28455 (6 October 2006)

Robert-François Damiens photo

“O death, why art thou so long in coming?”

Robert-François Damiens (1715–1757) French domestic servant and attempted assassin

Attributed last words
Source: Frederic Rowland (1900). The Last Words (Real and Traditional) of Distinguished Men and Women. Troy, New York: C. A. Brewster & Co.

Jack Vance photo
Laurence Tribe photo
John Jude Palencar photo

“It wasn't difficult to retire. I have friends who have a family life and do their art and make it work. I realized I couldn't give myself to both, and I really wanted to make a life with my husband, so that's what I did.”

Kitty Winn (1943) American actress

Source: Winn Traded Film for Family https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/WHERE-ARE-THEY-NOW-Winn-Traded-Film-for-Family-2917292.php (August 1, 1999)

Alice Meynell photo

“Slight as thou art, thou art enough to hide,
Like all created things, secrets from me,
And stand a barrier to eternity.”

Alice Meynell (1847–1922) English publisher, editor, writer, poet, activist

Source: Preludes (1875), "To a Daisy", p. 70

Alastair Reynolds photo

“The boundary between art and kitsch was negotiable, even porous.”

Source: Blue Remembered Earth (2012), Chapter 7 (p. 162)

Alastair Reynolds photo

“Nature shouldn’t be able to do this, Sunday thought. It shouldn’t be able to produce something that resembled the work of directed intelligence, something artful, when the only factors involved were unthinking physics and obscene, spendthrift quantities of time. Time to lay down the sediments, in deluge after deluge, entire epochs in the impossibly distant past when Mars had been both warm and wet, a world deluded into thinking it had a future. Time for cosmic happenstance to hurl a fist from the sky, punching down through these carefully superimposed layers, drilling through these carefully superimposed layers, drilling the geological chapters like a bullet through a book. And then yesterday more time—countless millions of years—for wind and dust to work their callous handiwork, scouring and abrading, wearing the exposed layers back at subtly different rates depending on hardness and chemistry, util these deliberate-looking right-angled steps and contours began to assume grand and imperial solidity, rising from the depths like the stairways of the gods.
Awe-inspiring, yesterday. Sometimes it was entirely right and proper to be awed. And recognising the physics in these formations, the hand of time and matter and the nuclear forces underpinning all things, did not lessen that feeling. What was she, ultimately, but the end product of physics and matter? And what was her art but the product of physics and matter working on itself?”

Source: Blue Remembered Earth (2012), Chapter 17 (pp. 292-293)

Michel Henry photo
Prevale photo

“The art of knowing how to live: being grateful for who you are.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) L'arte del saper vivere: essere grati per ciò che si è.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“For your art, always aim high and break the rules. To be able to realize, one must love the freedom to create.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Per la tua arte, punta sempre in alto e infrangi le regole. Per poter realizzare, bisogna amare la libertà di creare.
Source: prevale.net

Fannie Hurst photo
Eminem photo

“I tried to show you art, but you just pick it apart”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Don't Push Me" (featured on 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die Tryin', 2003)
2000s

Prevale photo

“Seduction is the innate art of the soul.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) La seduzione è l'arte innata dell'anima.
Source: prevale.net

Susan Cain photo
Susan Cain photo
Nicolas Cage photo

“Well, all art is therapeutic and a positive place to transmute emotions from the negative into a positive.”

Nicolas Cage (1964) American actor

"Nicolas Cage Is Ready to Be Taken Seriously Again" in Vanity Fair https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/07/nicolas-cage-pig-interview (15 July 2021)

Aimee Mann photo

“You lie so well
I could never even tell
what were facts in your artful rearranging But I came back for more
and you laughed in my face and you rubbed it in
cause I’m a Labrador
and I run
when the gun
drops the dove again”

Aimee Mann (1960) American indie rock singer-songwriter (born 1960)

"Labrador" · Video (a shot for shot recreation of scenarios from her first hit video with 'Til Tuesday, "Voices Carry") https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA1cX-wgMdM
Song lyrics, Charmer (2012)

“The illusionary nature of a two dimensional work of art can sometimes frustrate my creative process. I overcome this by stepping out of the flat illusion into the three dimensional and create sculptures of wood and bronze.”

Tomasz Vetulani (1965) Polish artist

Vetulani.nl (The website of Tomasz Vetulani) https://web.archive.org/web/20220505122011/https://www.vetulani.nl/sculptures, archived from the original https://www.vetulani.nl/sculptures (accessed on May 5th, 2022)

Thomas Jefferson photo
Thomas Jefferson photo

“Compulsion in religion is distinguished peculiarly from compulsion in every other thing. I may grow rich by art I am compelled to follow, I may recover health by medicines I am compelled to take against my own judgment, but I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve & abhor.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Notes on Religion (October 1776), published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 2 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-02_Bk.pdf, p. 266
1770s

Carolee Schneemann photo

“The art audience is very receptive to what I do. It's a mutual influence.”

Carolee Schneemann (1939–2019) American photographer, performance artist, and video artist

Source: [Carolee Scheenmann quotes, ThinkExist.com, March 13, 2014]

Cyril Connolly photo
Aristotle photo
Aristotle photo

“Every art, and every system, and in like manner every action and purpose aims, it is thought, at some good; for which reason a common and by no means a bad description of the good is, ‘that at which all things aim.’”

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

Bk I, Ch I
The Ethics Of Aristotle (Vol. I)

Prevale photo

“Having fun is an art and the secret is playing DJ.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Divertirsi è un'arte e il segreto è giocare DJ.

Prevale photo

“Insecurity is part of true art.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

L'insicurezza è parte della vera arte.

Elizabeth Martinez photo

“We need to see how dance, music, theater, art, poetry, are major arenas for alliance-building, especially among youth. Culture can usher in new visions”

Elizabeth Martinez (1925) American community organizer, activist, author, and educator

De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century (2017)

Zhang Yimou photo

“The problem is that Hollywood is competition for Chinese art films. So I thought I should make a film with box office promise, that refers to Chinese culture, but also contains an art element.”

Zhang Yimou (1950) Chinese actor, film director, screenwriter and film producer

"Fighting for Peace (and Art Films), Zhang Yimou on “Hero”" in Indie Wire https://www.indiewire.com/2004/08/fighting-for-peace-and-art-films-zhang-yimou-on-hero-78697/ (27 August 2004)

Kim Stanley Robinson photo

““Art is an optimist,” Nadia said to Maya as they walked on.
“Art is an idiot,” Maya replied.”

Source: Green Mars (1993), Chapter 7, “What Is to Be Done?” (p. 356)

Ernst Jünger photo
Dave Leduc photo

“I would prefer fighting foreign fighters to show the true power of Lethwei against other martial arts.”

Dave Leduc (1991) Canadian Lethwei fighter (born 1991)

As quoted by Anadolu Agency https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/ethnic-muslim-fighter-eyes-myanmar-s-kickboxing-crown/1325639 (November 30, 2018)
On Lethwei

Frank Lloyd Wright photo
Frank Lloyd Wright photo

“Genuine expressions as essence of the great art itself cannot be taught or imitated. Nor can they in any way be forced.”

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

A Testament (1957)

Frank Lloyd Wright photo

“Only Art and Religion can bring this new vision as reality to a nation.”

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

A Testament (1957)

Frank Lloyd Wright photo
Frank Lloyd Wright photo
Frank Lloyd Wright photo
Frank Lloyd Wright photo
Frank Lloyd Wright photo

“To survive, our American art was cheating itself of life.”

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

A Testament (1957)

Prevale photo

“Your existence emanates an intense light that illuminates everything around me. Your smile: contagious and spontaneous, gives me harmony and vitality. Your essence is a work of art.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: La tua esistenza emana una luce intensa che illumina tutto ciò che mi circonda. Il tuo sorriso: contagioso e spontaneo, mi dona armonia e vitalità. La tua essenza è un'opera d'arte.
Source: prevale.net

Emily Brontë photo
André Breton photo

“Surrealism is only trying to rejoin the most durable traditions of mankind. Among the primitive peoples art always goes beyond what is conventionally and arbitrarily called the 'real.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

The natives of the Northwest Pacific coast, the Pueblos, New Guinea, New Ireland, the Marquesas, among others, have made 'objets' [in the Collections of Max Ernst, C. Levy-Strauss, Andre Breton, Pierre Matisse, Carlbach, Segredakis] which Surrealists particularly appreciate.
Quote of 1942, in the introduction of the Catalog 'First papers of surrealism: hanging by André Breton, his twine Marcel Duchamp'; exhibition at the Coordinating Council of French Relief Societies, Inc., New York, Oct. 14-Nov. 7, 1942
after 1930

Frank Lloyd Wright photo
David Lynch photo

“I don't know why people expect art to make sense. Life doesn't make sense.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor
Prevale photo

“In art it is not enough to have talent. A true artist with the mind must never lack imagination and order his body to perform, remember and then archive.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Nell'arte non basta avere talento. Un vero artista con la mente non deve mai mancare di immaginazione ed ordinare al proprio corpo di eseguire, ricordare e poi archiviare.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“Any entertainment professional, whenever he works without earning money, will condemn himself to do so forever. Anyone will think that his work has no value. His art and professionalism must be protected, appreciated and remunerated, in every place in the world.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Qualsiasi professionista dello spettacolo, ogni volta che lavora senza guadagnare soldi, si condannerà a farlo per sempre. Chiunque penserà che il suo lavoro non abbia alcun valore. La sua arte deve essere tutelata, apprezzata e remunerata, in ogni posto del mondo.
Source: prevale.net