A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.
—Paul Cezanne (1839–1906) French Painter
What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter … a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.
—Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French Painter, Sculptor, Lithographer
Art is made to disturb. Science reassures. There is only one valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain.
—Georges Braque (1882–1963) French Painter, Artist, Sculptor
Labor is the beginning, the middle, and the end of art.
—Indian Proverb
The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
I think being funny is not anyone’s first choice.
—Woody Allen (b.1935) American Film Actor, Director
Those who can—do. Those who can’t—criticize.
—Indian Proverb
In art, all who have done something other than their predecessors have merited the epithet of revolutionary; and it is they alone who are masters.
—Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) French Post-Impressionist Painter
Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art.
—Kenneth Tynan (1927–80) English Theatre Critic, Writer
A good painter is to paint two main things, men and the working of man’s mind.
—Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Polymath, Painter, Sculptor, Inventor, Architect
Art-speech is the only truth. An artist is usually a damned liar, but his art, if it be art, will tell you the truth of his day. And that is all that matters. Away with eternal truth.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic
The final purpose of art is to intensify, even, if necessary, to exacerbate, the moral consciousness of people.
—Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American Novelist Essayist
The true work of art is the one which the seventh wave of genius throws up the beach where the undertow of time cannot drag it back.
—Cyril Connolly (1903–74) British Literary Critic, Writer
Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.
—John Updike (1932–2009) American Novelist, Poet, Short-Story Writer
Without music, life would be an error. The German imagines even God singing songs
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
All the world knows me in my book, and may book in me.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
By art he gladly found what he did seek,
A full requital of his striving pain.
Art can do much, but this maxim’s most sure:
A weak or wounded brain admits no cure.
—Anne Bradstreet (1612–72) American Poet
All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up.
—James Baldwin (1924–87) American Novelist, Social Critic
How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–81) British Head of State
Many bad artists will tell you that art is life. There’s a subtle difference however. You can turn your back on art
—Indian Proverb
No doubt the artist is the child of his time; but woe to him if he is also its disciple, or even its favorite.
—Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German Poet, Dramatist
What distinguishes a great artist from a weak one is first their sensibility and tenderness; second, their imagination, and third, their industry.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
Life without industry is guilt, industry without art is brutality.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
Un croquis vaut mieux qu
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity: of Spencer, remoteness: of Milton elevation and of Shakespeare everything.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers.
—James Baldwin (1924–87) American Novelist, Social Critic
Art is a jealous mistress; and if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture or philosophy, he makes a bad husband and an ill provider.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to coalesce in esthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest scientists are always artists as well.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
I wonder whether art has a higher function than to make me feel, appreciate, and enjoy natural objects for their art value. So, as I walk in the garden, I look at the flowers and shrubs and trees and discover in them an exquisiteness of contour, a vitality of edge or a vigor of spring as well as an infinite variety of color that no artifact I have seen in the last 60 years can rival.
—Bernard Berenson (1865–1959) Russian-born American Art Historian
In art as in love, instinct is enough.
—Anatole France (1844–1924) French Novelist
The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block.
—Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) French Post-Impressionist Painter
Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects and please or displease only in the memory.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.
—Cyril Connolly (1903–74) British Literary Critic, Writer
Literature is where I go to explore the highest and lowest places in human society and in the human spirit, where I hope to find not absolute truth but the truth of the tale, of the imagination and of the heart.
—Salman Rushdie (b.1947) Indian-born British Novelist
A work of art is above all an adventure of the mind.
—Eugene Ionesco (1909–94) Romanian-born French Dramatist
Art is the final cunning of the human soul which would rather do anything than face the gods.
—Iris Murdoch (1919–99) British Novelist, Playwright, Philosopher
Making social comment is an artificial place for an artist to start from. If an artist is touched by some social condition, what the artist creates will reflect that, but you can’t force it.
—Bella Lewitzky (1916–2004) American Dancer, Choreographer
Supreme art is a traditional statement of certain heroic and religious truth, passed on from age to age, modified by individual genius, but never abandoned.
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) Irish Poet, Dramatist
An artist is a man of action, whether he creates a personality, invents an expedient, or finds the issue of a complicated situation.
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) Polish-born British Novelist
In art there are tears that lie too deep for thought.
—Louis Kronenberger (1904–80) American Drama, Literary Critic
I see little of more importance to the future of our country and of civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist. If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
New arts destroy the old.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Art—the one achievement of Man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised.
—James Thurber
A picture is a poem without words.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world. It cannot, under any circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom, even temporarily. No great work has ever been based on hatred and contempt. On the contrary, there is not a single true work of art that has not in the end added to the inner freedom of each person who has known and loved it.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author