It is not in life, but in art that self-fulfillment is to be found.
—George Edward Woodberry (1855–1930) American Literary Critic, Poet
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
Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.
—William S. Burroughs (1914–97) American Novelist, Poet, Short Story Writer, Painter
If that’s art, I’m a Hottentot!
—Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) American Head of State
No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Is there not an art, a music, and a stream of words that shalt be life, the acknowledged voice of life?
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Poet
One thing that makes art different from life is that in art things have a shape… it allows us to fix our emotions on events at the moment they occur, it permits a union of heart and mind and tongue and tear.
—Marilyn French (1929–2009) American Feminist Author
Art distills sensations and embodies it with enhanced meaning.
—Jacques Barzun (b.1907) American Cultural Historian, Philosopher
If the Revolution has the right to destroy bridges and art monuments whenever necessary, it will stop still less from laying its hand on any tendency in art which, no matter how great its achievement in form, threatens to disintegrate the revolutionary environment or to arouse the internal forces of the Revolution, that is, the proletariat, the peasantry and the intelligentsia, to a hostile opposition to one another. Our standard is, clearly, political, imperative and intolerant.
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Russian Marxist Revolutionary
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
To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can’t eat it.
—Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian Novelist
Not everything has a name. Some things lead us into a realm beyond words.
—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian Dissident Novelist
With an apple I will astonish Paris.
—Paul Cezanne (1839–1906) French Painter
Art is permitted to survive only if it renounces the right to be different, and integrates itself into the omnipotent realm of the profane.
—Theodor W. Adorno (1903–69) German Philosopher, Composer
In order for the artist to have a world to express he must first be situated in this world, oppressed or oppressing, resigned or rebellious, a man among men.
—Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86) French Philosopher, Writer, Feminist
Art is a reality, not a definition; inasmuch as it approaches a reality, it approaches perfection, and inasmuch as it approaches a mere definition, it is imperfect and untrue.
—Benjamin Haydon (1786–1846) English Painter, Writer
All art is an imitation of nature.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
If I spit, they will take my spit and frame it as great art.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
A frenzied passion for art is a canker that devours everything else.
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator
We have art in order not to die of the truth.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
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
The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone.
—James Baldwin (1924–87) American Novelist, Social Critic
Pictures deface walls more often than they decorate them.
—Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American Architect
An artist is somebody who produces things that people don’t need to have.
—Andy Warhol (1928–87) American Painter, Printmaker, Film Personality
Pop artists deal with the lowly trivia of possessions and equipment that the present generation is lugging along with it on its safari into the future.
—J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) English Novelist, Short Story Writer
For us artists there waits the joyous compromise through art with all that wounded or defeated us in daily life; in this way, not to evade destiny, as the ordinary people try to do, but to fulfil it in its true potential—the imagination.
—Lawrence Durrell (1912–90) English Novelist, Poet, Travel Writer
Contrary to popular belief an artist is never ahead of his time, but most people are far behind theirs.
—Edgard Varese (1883–1965) French-born American Composer, Pioneer of Electronic Music
The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it.
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902) British Victorian Novelist, Essayist, Critic
In art there are tears that lie too deep for thought.
—Louis Kronenberger (1904–80) American Drama, Literary Critic
Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end.
—James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish Novelist, Poet
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