No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Sadistic excess attempts to reach roughly and by harshness what art reaches by fineness.
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957) English Novelist, Painter, Critic
Respect the masterpiece. It is true reverence to man. There is no quality so great, none so much needed now.
—Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American Architect
I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
Only an artist can interpret the meaning of life.
—Novalis (1772–1801) German Romantic Poet, Novelist
O, had I but followed the arts!
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world. In this long vigil he often has to vary his methods of stimulation; but in this long vigil he is also himself striving against a continual tendency to sleep.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
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 the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.
—Simone Weil (1909–1943) French Philosopher, Political Activist
Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity—it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.
—John Keats (1795–1821) English Poet
Often while reading a book one feels that the author would have preferred to paint rather than write; one can sense the pleasure he derives from describing a landscape or a person, as if he were painting what he is saying, because deep in his heart he would have preferred to use brushes and colors.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
Great art is the contempt of a great man for small art.
—Indian Proverb
The vitality of a new movement in Art must be gauged by the fury it arouses.
—Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) American-British Essayist, Bibliophile
Without poets, without artists, men would soon weary of nature’s monotony. The sublime idea men have of the universe would collapse with dizzying speed. The order which we find in nature, and which is only an effect of art, would at once vanish. Everything would break up in chaos. There would be no seasons, no civilization, no thought, no humanity; even life would give way, and the impotent void would reign everywhere.
—Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918) Italian-born French Poet, Playwright
The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art’s audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.
—Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) French Post-Impressionist Painter
Having once found the intensity of art, nothing else that can happen in life can ever again seem as important as the creative process.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American Novelist
Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint you can on it.
—Danny Kaye (1913–87) American Actor, Singer, Comedian
I think it is owing to the good sense of the English that they have not painted better.
—William Hogarth (1697–1764) English Painter, Engraver
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
After all, most writing is done away from the typewriter, away from the desk. I’d say it occurs in the quiet, silent moments, while you’re walking or shaving or playing a game, or whatever, or even talking to someone you’re not vitally interested in.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.
—Karl Marx (1818–1883) German Philosopher, Economist
The highest triumph of art, is the truest presentation of nature.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806–67) American Poet, Playwright, Essayist
An artist is somebody who produces things that people don’t need to have.
—Andy Warhol (1928–87) American Painter, Printmaker, Film Personality
Through art we express our conception of what nature is not.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.
—Vincent van Gogh (1853–90) Dutch Painter
The work of art, just like any fragment of human life considered in its deepest meaning, seems to me devoid of value if it does not offer the hardness, the rigidity, the regularity, the luster on every interior and exterior facet, of the crystal.
—Andre Breton (1896–1966) French Poet, Essayist, Critic
I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.
—Vincent van Gogh (1853–90) Dutch Painter
All art is quite useless.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Nature is inside art as its content, not outside as its model.
—Northrop Frye
The only living works are those which have drained much of the author’s own life into them.
—Samuel Butler
The artist speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation—and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear … which binds together all humanity—the dead to the living and the living to the unborn.
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) Polish-born British Novelist
The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist’s way of scribbling “Kilroy was here” on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass.
—William Faulkner (1897–1962) American Novelist
Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects and please or displease only in the memory.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
I’m a joker who has understood his epoch and has extracted all he possibly could from the stupidity, greed and vanity of his contemporaries.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
If we are to change our world view, images have to change. The artist now has a very important job to do. He’s not a little peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he’s really needed.
—David Hockney (b.1937) English Painter, Draughtsman
Humanity is the rich effluvium, it is the waste and the manure and the soil, and from it grows the tree of the arts.
—Ezra Pound (1885-1972) American Poet, Translator, Critic
Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you do criticize him, you’ll be a mile away and have his shoes.
—Anonymous
If a patron buys from an artist who needs money (needs money to buy tools, time, food), the patron then makes himself equal to the artist; he is building art into the world; he creates.
—Ezra Pound (1885-1972) American Poet, Translator, Critic
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Works of art, in my opinion, are the only objects in the material universe to possess internal order, and that is why, though I don’t believe that only art matters, I do believe in Art for Art’s sake.
—E. M. Forster (1879–1970) English Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist
Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
What is Art? It is the response of man’s creative soul to the call of the Real.
—Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali Poet, Polymath
The real truthfulness of all works of imagination,—sculpture, painting, and written fiction, is so purely in the imagination, that the artist never seeks to represent positive truth, but the idealized image of a truth.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before.
—Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American Novelist, Short-story Writer
One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Playwright, Film Director
All that I desire to point out is the general principle that Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
I can’t work without a model. I won’t say I turn my back on nature ruthlessly in order to turn a study into a picture, arranging the colors, enlarging and simplifying; but in the matter of form I am too afraid of departing from the possible and the true.
—Vincent van Gogh (1853–90) Dutch Painter