Art Quotes

"Art is the objectification of feeling"

"To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living"

Herman Melville, Novelist

"Only through art can we emerge from ourselves and know what another person sees"

Marcel Proust, Author

"The challenge is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible"

Hillary Clinton, Politician

"I can't bear art that you can walk round and admire. A book should be either a bandit or a rebel or a man in the crowd"

David Herbert Lawrence, Writer

"Be not affronted at a joke. If one throw salt at thee, thou wilt receive no harm, unless thou art raw"

Oliver Goldsmith, Poet

"The educator must believe in the potential power of his pupil, and he must employ all his art in seeking to bring his pupil to experience this power"

Alfred Adler, Psychologist

"In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good"

Sun Tzu, Philosopher

"The art of interpretation is not to play what is written"

Pablo Casals, Musician

"Art is not for the cultivated taste. It is to cultivate taste"

Nikki Giovanni, Poet

"I am for an art that takes into account the direct effect of the elements as they exist from day to day apart from representation"

Robert Smithson, Artist

"Art history is less explosive than the rest of history, so it sinks faster into the pulverized regions of time"

Robert Smithson, Artist

"Like art, revolutions come from combining what exists into what has never existed before"

Gloria Steinem, Activist

"It appears to be monumental only because it's art"

Christo, Artist

"I just wish the crowd I was associated with was more passionate about what they were doing and less consumed with the commerce of the art form"

Shia LaBeouf, Actor

"What distinguishes modern art from the art of other ages is criticism"

Octavio Paz, Poet

"The web of life is a beautiful and meaningless dance. The web of life is a process with a moving goal. The web of life is a perfectly finished work of art right where I am sitting now"

Robert Anton Wilson, Writer

"Art is an invention of aesthetics, which in turn is an invention of philosophers... What we call art is a game"

Octavio Paz, Poet

"Cultural confinement takes place when a curator imposes his own limits on an art exhibition, rather than asking an artist to set his limits"

Robert Smithson, Artist

"A work of art when placed in a gallery loses its charge, and becomes a portable object or surface disengaged from the outside world"

Robert Smithson, Artist

"A vacant white room with lights is still a submission to the neutral. Works of art seen in such spaces seem to be going through a kind of esthetic convalescence"

Robert Smithson, Artist

"Objects in a park suggest static repose rather than any ongoing dialectic. Parks are finished landscapes for finished art "

Robert Smithson, Artist

"I think it's pretentious to create art just for the sake of stroking the artists ego"

Lou Reed, Musician

"Painting, sculpture and architecture are finished, but the art habit continues"

Robert Smithson, Artist

"There is no logical reason why the camel of great art should pass through the needle of mob intelligence"

Rebecca West, Author

"Any authentic work of art must start an argument between the artist and his audience"

Rebecca West, Author

"How can anybody learn anything from an artwork when the piece of art only reflects the vanity of the artist and not reality?"

Lou Reed, Musician

"Modesty: the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it"

Oliver Herford, Author

"There's always been a struggle with filmmakers between art and industry, and you have to find a balance"

Michel Hazanavicius, Director

"Just letting it out is one of the definitions of bad art"

Dennis Potter, Dramatist

"It has taken me years of struggle, hard work and research to learn to make one simple gesture, and I know enough about the art of writing to realize that it would take as many years of concentrated effort to write one simple, beautiful sentence"

Isadora Duncan, Dancer

"Art is not necessary at all. All that is necessary to make this world a better place to live in is to love - to love as Christ loved, as Buddha loved"

Isadora Duncan, Dancer

"We have created indoor installations inside museums, like the Wrapped Floor at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 1968, and not monumental at all by any standards"

Christo, Artist

"The work of art is a scream of freedom"

Christo, Artist

"Therefore we have to go over the fact that all human beings are afraid by what is new. It is our work to convince them that they will enjoy it, and even if they don't, to allow us just for 14 days to create that work of art"

Christo, Artist

"People think our work is monumental because it's art, but human beings do much bigger things: they build giant airports, highways for thousands of miles, much, much bigger than what we create"

Christo, Artist

"You have to have conviction and completely question everything and anything you do. No matter how much you study, no matter how much you know, the side of your brain that has the smarts won't necessarily help you in making art"

Maya Lin, Architect

"Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it 'the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.' The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of 'Artist.'"

Edgar Allan Poe, Poet

"It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it"

Anais Nin, Author

"I think most of the people involved in any art always secretly wonder whether they are really there because they're good or there because they're lucky"

Katharine Hepburn, Actress

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