Art Quotes

"Managing bottom-up change is its own art"

"Great art is never produced for its own sake. It is too difficult to be worth the effort"

"In art, theories are as useful as a doctor's prescription; one must be sick to believe them"

"I remember Francis Bacon would say that he felt he was giving art what he thought it previously lacked. With me, it's what Yeats called the fascination with what's difficult. I'm only trying to do what I can't do"

Lucian Freud, Artist

"Those who gave thee a body, furnished it with weakness; but He who gave thee Soul, armed thee with resolution. Employ it, and thou art wise; be wise and thou art happy"

Akhenaton, Statesman

"Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That's how I get my kicks"

Edward Koch, Politician

"I try to keep a low profile in general. Not with my art, but just as a person"

Alanis Morissette, Musician

"I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats. I tell them the truth and they never believe me"

Camillo di Cavour, Statesman

"One of the most beautiful passages of Rousseau is that in the sixth book of Confessions, where he describes the awakening in him of the literary sense. Of such wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for its own sake, has most"

Walter Pater, Critic

"Criticism is the art of appraising others at one's own value"

George Jean Nathan, Editor

"The prerequisite of originality is the art of forgetting, at the proper moment, what we know"

Arthur Koestler, Novelist

"Schools are really bad now. Schools are not only bad in reading, writing and arithmetic, they're worse in cultural aspects, like in music and art. They don't teach you anything"

John Kricfalusi, Artist

"Translation is the art of failure"

Umberto Eco, Novelist

"Art may imitate life, but life imitates TV"

Ani DiFranco, Musician

"Glory is a heavy burden, a murdering poison, and to bear it is an art. And to have that art is rare"

Oriana Fallaci, Journalist

"Pollock said several times that he couldn't separate himself from his art. Not knowing much about modern art when I began to read about him, I was much more his persona - his struggles as a human being - that was interesting to me"

Ed Harris, Actor

"The music is a personal expression, like art. It is something that you like doing that comes from within, and is an expression that comes from God. That is why artists are beautiful and why people who copy are not really artistic"

Michael Schenker, Musician

"The recognition of the art that informs all pure science need not mean the abandonment for it of all present art, rather it will mean the completion of the transformation of art that has already begun"

John Desmond Bernal, Scientist

"Art is my life and my life is art"

Yoko Ono, Artist

"If you cannot learn to love real art at least learn to hate sham art"

William Morris, Designer

"Art does not need us, and it never did"

El Lissitzky, Artist

"Free enterprise is not a bad idea and has produced art"

Ishmael Reed, Poet

"Art is accusation, expression, passion. Art is a fight to the finish between black charcoal and white paper"

Gunter Grass, Author

"Once again, I think there is little art being done that really owns up to such intense possibilities"

Peter Sotos, Writer

"The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract"

Ellen Key, Writer

"Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one"

Stella Adler, Actress

"Now, there are so many movies, so many festivals, and so many awards going on, each judged with each other, like your work is worse than others and that's not fair. How can you tell what's best and what's worst from these awards? We're talking about art"

Javier Bardem, Actor

"Directing is the ultimate way to bring together all the art forms I've been involved with over the years"

Xander Berkeley, Actor

"An actress must be a woman whose emotional perceptions are true, and to make them so, she must have a fine contempt for any art or thought that betrays them for something false"

Nance O'Neil

"The forms of art are inexhaustible; but all lead by the same road of aesthetic emotion to the same world of aesthetic ecstasy"

Clive Bell, Critic

"Now will I rehearse before you a very ancient Breton Lay. As the tale was told to me, so, in turn, will I tell it over again, to the best of my art and knowledge. Hearken now to my story, its why and its reason"

Marie de France, Poet

"Ignorance is the first requisite of the historian - ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection unattainable by the highest art"

Lytton Strachey, Critic

"All my life as an artist I have asked myself: What pushes me continually to make sculpture? I have found the answer. art is an action against death. It is a denial of death"

Jacques Lipchitz, Sculptor

"I never had a job. I bought my first house within a year of getting out of school, and I built a custom one four and a half years later. The Art Center didn't teach much about business, but I learned a lot from the Fortune 500 companies that were my clients"

Richard MacDonald, Sculptor

"Art is more engaging that propaganda"

Larry Norman, Musician

"Strong and convincing art has never arisen from theories"

Mary Wigman, Dancer

"Our thoughts fly therefore by themselves in this festive hour of our plant community, to the man whom we thank for the ressurection of our Nation: Adolf Hitler, the patron of German labour and German art"

Gustav Krupp, Businessman

"And if we must educate our poets and artists in science, we must educate our masters, labour and capital, in art"

John B. S. Haldane, Scientist

"The lines of Pearl Art Glass are clean, certainly not cluttered"

James Lafferty, Actor

"To become truly immortal, a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken, it will enter the realms of childhood visions and dreams"

Giorgio de Chirico, Artist

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