Artists Quotes
468 quotes
"The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain."
"What we do see depends mainly on what we look for. ... In the same field the farmer will notice the crop, the geologists the fossils, botanists the flowers, artists the colouring, sportmen the cover for the game. Though we may all look at the same things, it does not all follow that we should see them."
"Artists exist to show us the world. So do windows."
"When a poet digs himself into a hole, he doesn't climb out. He digs deeper, enjoys the scenery, and comes out the other side enlightened."
"You don’t make art out of good intentions."
"The public wants work which flatters its illusions."
"Picasso had a saying - 'good artists copy, great artists steal' - and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas."
"Dive again and again into the river of uncertainty. Create in the dark, only then can you recognize the light."
"To make a deliberate falsification for personal gain is the last, worst depth to which either scholar or artist can descend in work or life.(Letter to Muriel St. Clare Byrne, 8 September 1935)"
"Fueled by my inspiration, I ran across the room to steal the cup of coffee the bookshelf had taken prisoner. Lapping the black watery brew like a hyena, I tossed the empty cup aside. I then returned to the chair to continue my divine act of creation. Hot blood swished in my head as my mighty pen stole across the page."
"The artist, like the God of creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails"
"It’s a shame how much artists have to bleed for people to enjoy their work."
"I mean really, how could an artistic individual stay grounded in the nitty-gritty of how many minutes per pound meat has to stay in the oven when trying to fathom the creative philosophy behind the greatest artistic minds of the world?"
"Feet on the ground, head in the clouds. That's how giants walk."
"He represents the case of stubbornness."
"There is one painting [titled Betrayal] that speaks to me on an emotional level. [President] Bashar al-Assad should look at this painting. He probably would see a big part of himself inside it. He might recognize the evil presented in this painting in himself. That’s the point of every painting in this room: They are designed for people to come to terms with their own capacity to commit horrible acts. If we don’t understand the root of violence, then we’ll never be able to protect ourselves from committing it."
"Everybody knows what this regime is capable of doing, including people who favour Assad. And everybody knows what's happening in Syrian jails. Of course the regime denies all these charges. But do you remember the photographs by Caesar who took pictures of torture victims in a military hospital and then smuggled them out of the country? After he published them in 2013, many Syrians looked through them in order to identify missing family members and friends. I discovered a good friend. He was arrested one and a half years beforehand and then tortured to death. Western countries look at the Syrian civil war and say: "If we have to choose the lesser of two evils, we'd rather live with Assad.""
"All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness."
"Don't listen to the politicians, always look at the artists, they're the first to tell us where we're going."
"Be an artist, in whatever little faculty possible.For the Earth, without ‘Art’ is just ‘Eh"
"Yes, but the artist?" said Nigel almost fiercely. "He's different, you know he is. He's driven by some compulsion: if he can't do what he knows he has to do with his life he might as well be dead. He's got to break through the world's indifference, or else break himself against it. He can't help it."
"Talent & Skills are useless & won’t get you anywhere, without lot of practice, commitment & prioritization"
"To make a deliberate falsification for personal gain is the last, worst depth to which either scholar or artist can descend in work or life., 8 September 1935)"
"Spirit is a child, the tune of dancing feet its lullaby."
"He was no god, just an artist; and when an artist is a man, he needs a woman to create like a god."
"For most people, art is only valuable if other people say it is; and artists are only worthwhile if they are either rich and famous, or dead."
"Bless the poets, the workers for justice, the dancers of ceremony, the singers of heartache, the visionaries, all makers and carriers of fresh meaning—We will all make it through, despite politics and wars, despite failures and misunderstandings. There is only love."
"Now is not the time for bigots and racists. No time for sexists and homophobes. Now, more than ever, is the time for ARTISTS. It’s time for us to rise above and to create. To show humanity. To spread hope. We must prevent society from destroying itself, from losing its way. Now is the time for love."
"Time and death: It's the ultimate vision of an artist at the end of everything. It's just what's there. It was not something I planned to do."
"Some of the people who hate me love some of the sentences that I have written, until they get to the name of the person to whom the sentences are attributed."
"The only way to find art is to lose touch with reality."
Christina Strigas, Love & Vodka: A Book of Poetry for Glass Hearts
"Caution not spirit, let it roam wild; for in that natural state dance embraces divine frequency."
"Through synergy of intellect, artistry and grace came into existence the blessing of a dancer."
"Burdened no more is soul for whom life flows through dance and not breath."
"Burdened no more is soul for whom life flows through dance like breath."
"At the age of four, you were an artist. And at seven, you were a poet."
"I do strongly feel that among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. Certain great artists can make out without it, Titian and others, but mostly you need ordeal. My idea is this: the artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business: Beethoven's deafness, Goya's deafness, Milton's blindness, that kind of thing."
"I spoke fire, laughed smoke, and madness spilled forth from my inspiration."
"Writing is the only art form where a good number of the artists make a slice of their living criticizing one another in print, in public."
"The artist must manage to make posterity believe that he never existed."
"Speed is not always a constituent to great work, the process of creation should be given time and thought."
"She preferred the quiet solitary atmosphere, to create in her own world of paint and colour, the thrill of anticipating how her works would turn out as she eyed the blank sheets of paper or canvas before starting her next masterpiece. How satisfying it was to mess around in paint gear, without having to worry about spills, starch or frills, that was the life!"
"You have to believe that your voice can mean something. You have to believe that what you do matters. And you have to keep going even on days you can't find that belief. If you can't do it for yourself, you do it for all the other young souls who need to be shown that things are possible. That they too can do that thing they dream of. You do it despite the doubts and the struggles. You do it because it's what you came here to do.That's what makes an artist."
"Philosophers wonder when they do not know, artists when they do."
"This is what it is to love an artist: The moon is always rising above your house. The houses of your neighbors look dull and lacking in moonlight. But he is always going away from you. Inside his head there is always something more beautiful."
"I am an artist you know ... it is my right to be odd."
"Artists are the serfs of a leisure society."
"Weirdism is definitely the cornerstone of many an artist's career."
"I feel as though whenever I create something, my Mr. Hyde wakes up in the middle of the night and starts thrashing it. I sometimes love it the next morning, but other times it is an abomination."
"Often the inspiration to write music comes from the voices in your head. You’re not crazy. Just be thankful they are not making you rescue people in 20-degree weather at 2:30 in the morning in the forest."
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