Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
Art
LoveFriendshipHappinessHopeFearCourageDeathLifeTimeWarPeaceFreedomTruthWisdomKnowledgeScienceArtMusicNatureMoneyWorkPowerGodBeautyLaughterFamilySuccess and failureChangeDreamsBooks and reading
“Experimental science is a craft and an art, and part of the art is knowing when to end a fruitless experiment. There is a danger of becoming obsessed with a fruitless experiment even if it goes nowhere.”
Martin Lewis Perl (1927–2014) said by 2014 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He needed more than vague explanations and abstract ideas—but those were the very soul of art. If you could explain something perfectly, then you’d never need art. That was the difference between a table and a beautiful woodcutting. You could explain the table: its purpose, its shape, its nature. The woodcutting you simply had to experience.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“L'art pour l'art signifie, pour les adeptes, un travail dégagé de toute préoccupation autre que celle du beau en lui-même.”
Théophile Gautier (1811–1872) first seen 1856 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: L'art moderne (Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1856) p. 151; F. W. Ruckstull Great Works of Art and What Makes Them Great (New York: Putnam, 1925) p. 299
“There is one art, no more, no less: to do all things with art- lessness.”
Piet Hein (1905–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I believe any philosophizing about art is absurd and empty. Unfortunately, in the last century a phenomenon has emerged in which the status of “work of art” were granted to many foolish, tacky, and distasteful works as long as they were accompanied by ten or twelve pages of philosophizing justification.”
Guity Novin (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Leg spin is an art. Not everybody has that art. Two or three people in the world can do what I do. Because of His help, His hand on me, I am going forward. That makes me down to earth and humble enough.”
Danish Kaneria (born 1980) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Kaneria describing the role that his faith plays in his life and cricket, interview on Times Online (October 21 2005)
“Bittersweet creatures : So what is art, that it can enhance social abilities and transform the self? First of all, art is something that lasts and can spread to others. So although one can imagine a lover whispering an improvised poem into her lover’s ear, for the most part a poem will travel in time and space, and last beyond the moment of its conception.”
Keith Oatley (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The business of art is to enlarge and correct the heart and to lift our ideals out of the ugly and the mean through love of the ideal...The business of art is to appeal to the soul.”
Florence Earle Coates (1850–1927) first seen 1916 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The New York Times (10 December 1916) From "Godlessness Mars Most Contemporary Poetry.
“Art’s true purpose is to be human as opposed to some rarefied activity set away from real life. I think art should help you to navigate the real challenges of being a human being.”
Martin Firrell (born 1963) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in the documentary The Question Mark Inside broadcast in the UK by Sky Arts (30 October 2009).
“My activism is a part of me. If my art has anything to do with me, then my activism is part of my art.”
Ai Weiwei (born 1957) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ai Weiwei’s Year of Living Dangerously.” Art in America, September 2009, 28.
“I came to art because I wanted to escape the other regulations of the society. The whole society is so political. But the irony is that my art becomes more and more political.”
Ai Weiwei (born 1957) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Wines, Michael. “China’s Impolitic Artist, Still Waiting to Be Silenced.” New York Times, November 28, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/world/asia/28weiwei.html?pagewanted=all
“I spend very little time just doing '“art as art.'”
Ai Weiwei (born 1957) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Jones, Alice. “Ten People Who Changed the World: Ai Weiwei, Chinese Artist, Became a Truly Global Force.” Independent, December 31, 2011.
“Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it. I don’t feel that much anger. I equally have a lot of joy.”
“I don’t really care that much about if I want to be more successful or less successful in art, because I never think life and art should be separate. What’s life if you don’t have conversation and joy and anger?”
“The art always wins. Anything can happen to me, but the art will stay.”
Ai Weiwei (born 1957) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ai Weiwei: Artistic Licence.” Economist, May 5, 2012.
“Science is not art. Yet, despite the lack of complete identity between art and science, there is much in common among different creative processes.”
Paul Samuelson (1915–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The allotted function of art is not, as is often assumed, to put across ideas, to propagate thoughts, to serve as an example. The aim of art is to prepare a person for death, to plough and harrow his soul, rendering it capable of turning to good.”
Andrei Tarkovsky (1932–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no question that advertising is an art, and manipulation is the art of advertising through the medium of the tape.”
Edwin Lefèvre (1871–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Remember three things about censorship. First, it doesn’t work to suppress art or words that you don’t like. Second, trying to censor something just arouses interest in it, as well as resentment towards those who try to tell others what they can or cannot see. Third, exhibiting art or recommending that students read a book does not mean an endorsement of the image or contents.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: National Coalition Against Censorship and PEN defend Met’s showing of a “controversial” painting" December 9, 2017
“Art is neither the monopoly of a nation, nor of a social class, or the major age. People of outstanding talents and fine feelings, people who are not lacking in imagnation and the sense of creation, as well as good will-power. They are privileged to be involved in ART.”
Sadik Kaceli (1914–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What modern art means is that you have to keep finding new ways to express yourself, to express the problems, that there are no settled ways, no fixed approach. This is a painful situation, and modern art is about this painful situation of having no absolutely definite way of expressing yourself.”
Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is only one art of writing, and that is the art of poetry..whether it is in the form of prose or in rhyme and meter or in rhymed cadence.”
F. S. Flint (1885–1960) said by 1960 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The problem is that we are living now with the consequences of the others people mistake. It would be nice to make our own and learn from them. That is the art of democracy. That is the art of citizenship.”
Raj Patel (born 1972) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: About democracy (Retrieved on July 20, 2010.)
“Thou wilt draw nigh! Father — it is no dream that Thou art near — No dream that, in my sin and misery, I may look up to Thee,— May hide beneath the shadow of Thy wings, From all the restlessness of outward things, And from my own heart's self-accusing fears — For Thou art nigh.”
Hetty Bowman (1838–1872) said by 1872 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 432.
“Theater is far superior to film in poetry, in abstract poetry. … A lot of what I do in theater is cinematic, and a lot of what I do in film is theatrical, but there are different rules to it. … each art form makes me more interested in the other art form because I try and bring in those techniques and those ideas and put them into a different way of using them.”
Julie Taymor (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The great tragedy is that they're removing art completely, not because they're putting more science in, but because they can't afford the art teachers or because somebody thinks it's not useful. An enlightened society has all of this going on within it. It's part of what distinguishes what it is to be human from other life forms on Earth — that we have culture.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.”
Russell Lynes (1910–1991) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reader's Digest, December 1954
“Art, like a lot of things, is a lost art.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You might say that a creative person is a person who simply has a desire to have something, to add something to the world that's not there yet, and goes about arranging fort that to happen.. ..when you desire a work of art and make it, you've added to the stock of art in the world. Artists are one of the people who can do that: add to the stock of things.”
Carl Andre (1935–2024) said by 2024 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The laws of art are eternal and don't change at all, as the moral laws don't change in human beings. [arguing with Franz Marc who demanded in 'Der Blaue Reiter' circa 1912 a new modern art, in relation to its own - changing - time].”
Max Beckmann (1884–1950) first seen 1905 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: as quoted in the exhibition, 'Expressionisten, die Avantgarde in Deutschland 1905 - 1920', catalog Nationalgalerie Berlin, DDR, 1986, p. 109
“When I left Paris in 1954, I saw no art that was being 'made' like mine and returning to the U.S. I found no one 'making' art that way either. In my own work, I have never been interested in painterliness (or what I find is) a very personal handwriting, putting marks on a canvas. My work is a different way of seeing and making something and which has a different use.”
Ellsworth Kelly (1923–2015) first seen 1969 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. unknown : 'Notes from 1969'
“Great moral teachers of humanity were, in a certain sense, geniuses in the art of living more than in the art of thinking.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions (1954), p. 12.
“The more we study Art, the less we care for Nature. What Art really reveals to us is Nature's lack of design, her curious crudities, her extraordinary monotony, her absolutely unfinished condition.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) first seen 1891 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Intentions (1891)
“Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If the art of war were nothing but the art of avoiding risks, glory would become the prey of mediocre minds.... I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest.”
Napoleon (1769–1821) first seen 1813 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement at the beginning of the 1813 campaign, as quoted in The Mind of Napoleon (1955) by J. Christopher Herold, p. 45
“If you leave your art, the world will beat you back to it. The world has not an ambition worth sharing, or a prize worth handling. Corrupt successes, disgraceful failures, or sheeplike vegetation are all it has to offer. I prefer Art, which gives me a sixth sense of beauty, with self-respect: perhaps also an immortal reputation in return for honest endeavour in a labour of love.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The object of art — like every other product — creates a public which is sensitive to art and enjoys beauty.”
Karl Marx (1818–1883) said by 1883 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Works of art" which cannot be understood in themselves but, for the justification of their existence, need those bombastic instructions for their use, finally reaching that intimidated soul, who is patiently willing to accept such stupid or impertinent nonsense—these works of art from now on will no longer find their way to the German people.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech inaugurating the first Great German Art Exhibition on July 18, 1937, translated by Ilse Falk and quoted in Herschel B. Chipp, Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists and Critics (University of California…
“In order to correctly define art, it is necessary, first of all, to cease to consider it as a means to pleasure and consider it as one of the conditions of human life. ...Reflecting on it in this way, we cannot fail to observe that art is one of the means of affective communication between people.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Having acknowledged the measure of the good to be pleasure, i.e., beauty, the European upper classes went back in their comprehension of art to the gross conception of the primitive Greeks which Plato had already condemned. And with this understanding of life, a theory of art was formulated.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In this sense, we should continually be striving to transform every art into a science: in the process, we advance the art.”
Donald Knuth (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The art of programming is the art of organizing complexity, of mastering multitude and avoiding its bastard chaos as effectively as possible.”
Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dijkstra (1970) "Notes On Structured Programming" (EWD249), Section 3 ("On The Reliability of Mechanisms"), p. 7.
“Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification — the art of discerning what we may with advantage omit.”
Karl Popper (1902–1994) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Open Universe : An Argument for Indeterminism (1992), p. 44
“A fairly clear line separated advertisement from art. ... The first effect of the triumph of the capitalist (if we allow him to triumph) will be that that line of demarcation will entirely disappear. There will be no art that might not just as well be advertisement.”
G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is one art, of which every man should be master, the art of . If you are not a thinking man, to what purpose are you a man at all? In like manner, there is one knowledge, which it is in every man's interest and duty to acquire, namely, : or to what end was man alone, of all animals, endowed by the Creator with the faculty of self-consciousness?”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) said by 1834 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Death will come when thou art dead, Soon, too soon — Sleep will come when thou art fled; Of neither would I ask the boon I ask of thee, beloved Night — Swift be thine approaching flight, Come soon, soon!”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) first seen 1821 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To Night (1821), st. 5
“Thou art a retailer of phrases, and dost deal in remnants of remnants, like a maker of pincushions; thou art in truth (metaphorically speaking) a speaker of shorthand.”
William Congreve (1670–1729) said by 1729 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some of my colleagues who are criticized today for lack of forthright principles – or who are looked upon with scornful eyes as compromising “politicians” – are simply engaged in the fine art of conciliating, balancing and interpreting the forces and factions of public opinion, an art essential to keeping our nation united and enabling our Government to function.”
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Source: Profiles in Courage Excerpts. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum. Archived from the original on August 17, 2025. Retrieved August 17, 2025.
“Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending; Many a poem is marred by a superfluous verse.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) first seen 1879 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Elegiac Verse, st. 14 (1879).
“It is the glory and good of Art That Art remains the one way possible Of speaking truth,—to mouths like mine, at least.”
Robert Browning (1812–1889) said by 1889 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source