Art Quotes

"Art must take reality by surprise"

Francoise Sagan, Playwright

"Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art"

Ansel Adams, Photographer

"Reason clears and plants the wilderness of the imagination to harvest the wheat of art"

Austin O'Malley, Physicist

"The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes"

Tony Blair, Statesman

"Art is an expression of who you are. Parts that I play are my sculptures"

Kim Cattrall, Actress

"Art is an attempt to integrate evil"

Simone de Beauvoir, Writer

"Art never improves, but... the material of art is never quite the same"

T. S. Eliot, Poet

"Most of the appearance of mirth in the world is not mirth, it is art. The wounded spirit is not seen, but walks under a disguise"

Bishop Robert South, Theologian

"To curb the machine and limit art to handicraft is a denial of opportunity"

Lewis Mumford, Sociologist

"Our individual lives cannot, generally, be works of art unless the social order is also"

Charles Horton Cooley, Sociologist

"The art of politics consists in knowing precisely when it is necessary to hit an opponent slightly below the belt"

Konrad Adenauer, Statesman

"I've loved art for more than 30 years"

Jeffrey Archer, Politician

"Of course the illusion of art is to make one believe that great literature is very close to life, but exactly the opposite is true. Life is amorphous, literature is formal"

Francoise Sagan, Playwright

"The chief function of the city is to convert power into form, energy into culture, dead matter into the living symbols of art, biological reproduction into social creativity"

Lewis Mumford, Sociologist

"Life is the only art that we are required to practice without preparation, and without being allowed the preliminary trials, the failures and botches, that are essential for training"

Lewis Mumford, Sociologist

"I am one of those unhappy persons who inspire bores to the greatest flights of art"

Edith Sitwell, Poet

"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, Writer

"Then I sit down, work at it, because now I have a convincing feeling about what that place wants to be, you see? And it's not just me. Me and my talent comes in taking that consensus and then making something wonderful out of it - a work of art"

Lawrence Halprin, Architect

"There are worlds of experience beyond the world of the aggressive man, beyond history, and beyond science. The moods and qualities of nature and the revelations of great art are equally difficult to define; we can grasp them only in the depths of our perceptive spirit"

Ansel Adams, Photographer

"To write is to become disinterested. There is a certain renunciation in art"

Anthony Burgess, Novelist

"So long as the system of competition in the production and exchange of the means of life goes on, the degradation of the arts will go on; and if that system is to last for ever, then art is doomed, and will surely die; that is to say, civilization will die"

William Morris, Designer

"I do not want art for a few any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few"

William Morris, Designer

"History has remembered the kings and warriors, because they destroyed; art has remembered the people, because they created"

William Morris, Designer

"When you create art, the world has to wait"

Will Smith, Actor

"We consider the triumph of art to be not in the emotional or the psychological spheres, but rather in the constructive"

El Lissitzky, Artist

"The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known"

El Lissitzky, Artist

"Music is an art form that's always changing and evolving. It's never static, and that's what makes it so exciting"

David Gilmour, Musician

"He was the first to conceive of movies as an art form. His belief was that if the traditional art form would not find room for him, then he would make an art form of his own"

Richard Schickel, Author

"A great department store, easily reached, open at all hours, is more like a good museum of art than any of the museums we have yet established"

John Cotton Dana, Author

"The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery"

Mark Van Doren, Poet

"Unlike the expressionists, I have never been interested in renewing the world through the vehicle of art"

Georg Baselitz, Artist

"But what does interest me is the notion that if you do a lot of work it means there's a potential for other people to understand that a lot of things are possible with a sustained effort and that the broadening of experiences is possible and I think that's all art can be"

Richard Serra, Sculptor

"I now believe that major labels can only work with people who care more about fame and money than the quality of the art they produce"

Malcolm Wilson, Politician

"The ancient codes were doubtless originally suggested by the discovery and diffusion of the art of writing"

Henry James Sumner Maine, Historian

"Some couples could not work together but we enjoy working on our projects and building our art business"

Dwayne Hickman, Actor

"We all agree now - by "we" I mean intelligent people under sixty - that a work of art is like a rose. A rose is not beautiful because it is like something else. Neither is a work of art. Roses and works of art are beautiful in themselves"

Clive Bell, Critic

"I have a small house so I borrow everything except art, that's what I love"

Salma Hayek, Actress

"That's something I learned in art school. I studied graphic design in Germany, and my professor emphasized the responsibility that designers and illustrators have towards the people they create things for"

Eric Carle, Author

"And then, I was thinking of doing a record just like starting with voice, because I did this one song that was just kind of a cappella, and I did it for this art piece I did where people could come and play music to go with a voice"

Kim Gordon, Musician

"I'm glad I made a piece of art that can be interpreted so widely. Art is always interpreted subjectively"

Paula Cole, Musician

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