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
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Art
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“An artistic impression is substantially the resultant of two components. One what the work of art gives the onlooker — the other, what he is capable of giving to the work of art.”
Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) first seen 1909 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: An Artistic Impression" (1909) in Style and Idea (1985), p. 189
“I find above all that the expression, "atonal music," is most unfortunate — it is on a par with calling flying "the art of not falling," or swimming "the art of not drowning.”
Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) first seen 1923 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Hauer's Theories" (Notes of November 1923), in Style and Idea (1985), p. 210
“...if it is art, it is not for all, and if it is for all, it is not art.”
Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: from New Music, Outmoded Music, Style and Idea (1946); as quoted in Style and Idea (1985), p. 124
“Art is an optimist,” Nadia said to Maya as they walked on. “Art is an idiot,” Maya replied.”
Kim Stanley Robinson (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don’t want life to imitate art. I want life to be art.”
Carrie Fisher (1956–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Jede Äußerung menschlichen Geisteslebens kann als eine Art der Sprache aufgefaßt werden, und diese Auffassung erschließt nach Art einer wahrhaften Methode überall neue Fragestellungen.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) first seen 1916 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Language as Such and on the Language of Man" (1916), translated by E. Jephcott, in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Vol. 1 (1996), p. 62
“Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd, Lady, it is to be presum'd, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free, Such sweet neglect more taketh me Than all the adulteries of art: They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.”
Ben Jonson (1572–1637) first seen 1609 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Epicene, or The Silent Woman (1609), Act I, scene i
“Soul of the age! The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage! My Shakespeare, rise; I will not lodge thee by Chaucer or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie A little further, to make thee a room; Thou art a monument, without a tomb, And art alive still, while thy book doth live, And we have wits to read, and praise to give.”
Ben Jonson (1572–1637) said by 1637 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They say princes learn no art truly, but the art of horsemanship. The reason is, the brave beast is no flatterer. He will throw a prince as soon as his groom.”
Ben Jonson (1572–1637) said by 1637 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Works of art make rules but rules do not make works of art.”
Claude Debussy (1862–1918) said by 1918 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Companion to Contemporary Musical Thought (1992) by John Paynter, p. 590
“Art gives me the freedom I don’t have when I make music. In music, you feel a connection to the voice and think about the person behind it. In art that's secondary.”
Marilyn Manson (born 1969) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Regarding his latest art exhibition, as quoted in The Age (30 June 2010).
“The city is a fact in nature, like a cave, a run of mackerel or an ant-heap. But it is also a conscious work of art, and it holds within its communal framework many simpler and more personal forms of art. Mind takes form in the city; and in turn, urban forms condition mind.”
Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Their choice of material was always very much to do with what they were thinking as architecture students. Rather unexciting people, I would've thought, primarily. I mean, anybody walking into an art school like that would've been tricked--maybe they were working their entry into an art school.”
Syd Barrett (1946–2006) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Syd Barrett interview in Melody Maker, 1971-03-27
“The man who speaks and writes about art should refrain from censuring or pontificating. He will thus avoid doing anything foolish, for in the presence of primordial depth all art is but dream and nature.”
Jean Arp (1886–1966) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Arp on Arp: poems, essays, memories. p. 327 (1958)
“We do not wish to copy nature. We do not want to reproduce, we want to produce. We want to produce as a plant produces a fruit and does not itself reproduce. We want to produce directly and without meditation. As there is not the least trace of abstraction in this art, we will call it concrete art.”
Jean Arp (1886–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 183: Serge Fauchereau (1988) in Arp, p. 20 commented: 'Even though his work was nonrepresentational, Arp disapproved of the term 'abstract art' being applied to it, as he often explained with the above quote'.
“Since the time of the cavemen, man has glorified himself, has made himself divine, and his monstrous vanity has caused human catastrophe. Art has collaborated in this false development. I find this concept of art which has sustained man's vanity to be loathsome.”
Jean Arp (1886–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No art or learning is to be pursued halfheartedly," His Highness replied, "...and any art worth learning will certainly reward more or less generously the effort made to study it.”
Murasaki Shikibu (970–1100) said by 1100 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Art of Peace is the principle of nonresistance. Because it is nonresistant, it is victorious from the beginning. Those with evil intentions or contentious thoughts are instantly vanquished. The Art of Peace is invincible because it contends with nothing.”
Morihei Ueshiba (1883–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In contrast to the asexual chasteness of official communist art, Nazi art is both prurient and idealizing. A utopian aesthetics (physical perfection; identity as a biological given) implies an ideal eroticism: sexuality converted into the magnetism of leaders and the joy of followers. The fascist ideal is to transform sexual energy into a "spiritual" force, for the benefit of the community.”
Susan Sontag (1933–2004) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Fascinating Fascism" (1974), published in The New York Review of Books (6 February 1975) and reprinted in Sontag's Under the Sign of Saturn (1980), p. 93
“What the overemphasis on the idea of content entails is the perennial, never consummated project of interpretation. And, conversely, it is the habit of approaching works of art in order to interpret them that sustains the fancy that there really is such a thing as the content of a work of art.”
Susan Sontag (1933–2004) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Against Interpretation" (1964), p. 5
“Whether or not we can get together, remember well that art “lives” where absolute freedom is. With all the training thrown to nowhere, with a mind (if there is such a verbal substance) perfectly unaware of its own working, with the “self” vanishing nowhere, the art of JKD attains its perfection.”
Bruce Lee (1940–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We seek through art To recover our center, To remember our soul's task, To stop sleepwalking in confusion, To stop managing our depression, To harness the passion of inexhaustible love, To find the One Godself Hidden throughout creation, Art is the scab healing the wound Of the separate self-illusion.”
“Mystic Art affirms the holy mystery and the ideals of truth, goodness and beauty. No other artistic ideal can fulfill the longing soul like the creation and appreciation of relevant sacred art.”
“Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.”
Margot Fonteyn (1919–1991) said by 1991 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The English race, consequently, has long and successfully studied the art of curbing executive power to the constant neglect of the art of perfecting executive methods. It has exercised itself much more in controlling than in energizing government, It has been more concerned to render government just and moderate than to make it facile, well-ordered,and effective.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Cleavage Sister: "What do you feel about erotic art?" Morrissey:"I don't know much about rotting art?" Cleavage Sister: "What about erotic music?" Morrissey:"I know a great deal about rotting music.”
“The cinema is a place of intrinsic indiscernibility between art and non-art.”
Alain Badiou (born 1937) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From Considérations sur l'état actuel du cinéma (1999), translated as Philosophy and Cinema in Infinite Thought: truth and the return of philosophy. London: Continuum, 2003. .
“In ceasing to subordinate creative power to any supreme value, modern art has brought home to us the presence of that creative power throughout the whole history of art.”
André Malraux (1901–1976) said by 1976 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“History may clarify our understanding of the supreme work of art, but can never account for it completely; for the Time of art is not the same as the Time of history.”
André Malraux (1901–1976) said by 1976 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hephaistos bears in Homer the double stamp of a Nature-Power, representing the element of fire, and of an anthropomorphic deity who is the god of art at a period when the only fine art known was in works of metal produced by the aid of fire.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1870 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Jeventus Mundi: The Gods and Men of the Heroic Age (1870) p. 289.
“Naturalism is a word of many meetings in philosophy as well as in art. like most isms — classicism and romanticism, idealism and realism in art — it’s has become an emotional term, a war cry of partisans.”
John Dewey (1859–1952) said by 1952 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No work of art can be instantaneously perceived because there is the no opportunity for conservation and increase in tension, and hence none for that release and unfolding which gives volume to a work of art.”
John Dewey (1859–1952) said by 1952 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The administration’s mean-spiritedness towards our art and entertainment is an expression of their mean-spirited attitude about people who want that art and entertainment, people who also want and deserve decent wages, a fair tax system, a safe environment, education for their children and healthcare for all.”
Robert De Niro (born 1943) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 44th annual Chaplin Award acceptance speech, (May 8, 2017)
“Annie Besant’s book where she put forward the idea that theosophical mystical energies could be portrayed as colours or abstract shapes was practically the invention of abstract art. A lot of artists rushed out and read it and suddenly thought, ‘oh God you could, you could portray love as a colour, or depression as a colour” All of a sudden abstract art happens, a flowering out of occultism.”
Alan Moore (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The history of art is that there have been alot of artists who have always been socially engaged and art comes out of both a desire to define the meaning of life and a kind of rage and railing against human limitations.”
Judy Chicago (born 1939) first seen 1981 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In an interview with Ann Stubbs on New York City's WBAI (1981)
“Professionalism has no place in art, and hacking is art. Software Engineering might be science; but that's not what I do. I'm a hacker, not an engineer.”
Jamie Zawinski (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Computer programming is like the ability or skill to see what Picasso saw from all the different angles at once. If it is an art, the crucial element of art is to look at things from an angle that produces new insight or at least has that potential.”
Erik Naggum (1965–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No art is superior to another one, but every art looks for expertise and perfection. This is life, which continues; this is why there is no death. There is continuation. There is no silence. There is a continuation of thought.”
Marcel Marceau (1923–2007) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview The Lantern (5 April 2001)
“The good qualities in our soul are most successfully and forcefully awakened by the power of art. Just as science is the intellect of the world, art is its soul.”
Maxim Gorky (1868–1936) first seen 1917 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Untimely Thoughts (1917-18) (original: Наиболее успешно и могуче будит в нашей душе ее добрые начала сила искусства. Как наука является разумом мира, так искусство — сердце его.)
“I am always wandering around in enigmas. There are young people who constantly come to tell me: you, too, are making Op Art. I haven't the slightest idea what that is, Op Art. I've been doing this work for thirty years now.”
M. C. Escher (1898–1972) said by 1972 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Great art is the contempt of a great man for small art.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Notebook L (1945) edited by Edmund Wilson
“He had the true American taste for argument, argument as distinguished from conversation on the one hand and from oratory on the other. The long-drawn-out, meandering debate was, perhaps, the only art form he understood or relished, and this was natural since the argument is in a sense our only indigenous folk-art, and it is not the poet but the silver-tongued lawyer who is our real national bard.”
Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The art of writing history is the art of emphasizing the significant facts at the expense of the insignificant. And it is the same in every field of knowledge. Knowledge is power only if a man knows what facts not to bother about.”
Robert Wilson Lynd (1879–1949) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Robert Lynd (1926) The orange tree: a volume of essays. p.60. The last sentence "Knowledge is power only if a man knows what facts not to bother about." was cited in some sources in the 1960s, such as August Kerber (196…
“Art can only be truly art by presenting an adequate outward symbol of some fact in the interior life.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mercury has cast aside The signs of intellectual pride, Freely offers thee the soul: Art thou noble to receive? Canst thou give or take the whole, Nobly promise and believe? Then thou wholly human art, A spotless, radiant, ruby heart, And the golden chain of love Has bound thee to the realm above.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Bement [her art teacher] told me things to read. He told me of exhibitions to go and see [c. 1917].. ..the two books that he told me to get were Jeromy Eddy 'Cubists and Post-impressionism' and Kandinsky 'On the Spiritual of Art'... It was some time before I really begun to use the ideas. I didn't start at until I was down in Carolina — alone — thinking things out for myself.”
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Creation always involves building upon something else. There is no art that doesn't reuse. And there will be less art if every reuse is taxed by the appropriator. Monopoly controls have been the exception in free societies; they have been the rule in closed societies.”
Lawrence Lessig (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Art hurts. Art urges voyages— and it is easier to stay at home.”
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Chicago Picasso" (1968)
“I know what I am to him. A butterfly he has always wanted to catch. I remember (the very first time I met him) G.P. saying that collectors were the worst animals of all. He meant art collectors, of course. I didn’t really understand, I thought he was just trying to shock Caroline — and me. But of course, he is right. They’re anti-life, anti-art, anti-everything.”
John Fowles (1926–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All good science is art. And all good art is science.”
John Fowles (1926–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source