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. 1,158,808 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
Art
LoveFriendshipHappinessHopeFearCourageDeathLifeTimeWarPeaceFreedomTruthWisdomKnowledgeScienceArtMusicNatureMoneyWorkPowerGodBeautyLaughterFamilySuccess and failureChangeDreamsBooks and reading
“Whipping, that’s virtue’s governess, Tutoress of arts and sciences; That mends the gross mistakes of nature, And puts new life into dull matter; That lays foundation for renown, And all the honours of the gown.”
Samuel Butler (poet) (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I encourage my boys to do stuff in the arts, but I'm also an advocate of not taking any shit, I have a heavy bag and every morning the boys go three 3-minute rounds on the heavy bag with the gloves.”
Michael Madsen (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Agriculture, for an honorable and high-minded man,” says Xenophon, “is the best of all occupations and arts by which men procure the means of living.”
Amos Bronson Alcott (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I look upon enthusiasm, in all other points but that of religion, to be a very necessary turn of mind; as indeed it is a vein which nature seems to have marked with more or less strength, in the tempers of most men. No matter what the object is, whether business, pleasures or the fine arts: whoever pursues them to any purpose must do so con amore.”
William Melmoth (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Though he loved many innovations in science and devoted his life to introduce useful ones in the arts, he didn't like them in politics and even less in the statutes of the academies”
Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau (1700–1782) said by 1782 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: . Tribute to Duhamel du Monceau, April 30, 1783
“A man of sovereign parts he is esteem'd; Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms: Nothing becomes him ill that he would well.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) said by 1616 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“From women's eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain, and nourish all the world.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) said by 1616 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“No arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts And eloquence.”
John Milton (1608–1674) said by 1674 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“Me let the tender office long engage To rock the cradle of reposing age; With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death; Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, And keep awhile one parent from the sky.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“And e'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy, The heart distrusting asks if this be joy.”
Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) said by 1774 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“Transforms old print To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes Of gallery critics by a thousand arts.”
William Cowper (1731–1800) said by 1800 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers therefore are the founders of human civilization.”
Daniel Webster (1782–1852) said by 1852 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“The languages, especially the dead, The sciences, and most of all the abstruse, The arts, at least all such as could be said To be the most remote from common use.”
Lord Byron (1788–1824) said by 1824 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“Painting is an act, a sequence of movements one bears within oneself, whose source is one's inner being.”
Jean Miotte (1926–2016) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in: Ingo F. Walther Art of the 20th Century (2000), p. 264.
“Is she not more than painting can express, Or youthful poets fancy when they love?”
Nicholas Rowe (1674–1718) said by 1718 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It must be remembered that painting is not the mere gratification of sight.”
Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) said by 1792 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I hate painting, and poetry too! Neither the one nor the other ever did any good.”
George II of Great Britain (1683–1760) said by 1760 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: John Ireland Hogarth Illustrated (1791); cited from John Ireland and John Nichols Hogarth's Works (1883) p. 122.
“All this could be enough -- we would leave an Impressionist painting at this stage -- probably much earlier -- and leave it possibly with great satisfaction.”
Peter Greenaway (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All this takes many clumsy and inexact word-descriptions to describe, but if we read paintings like we read books, it would not be such a hidden language for painting can effortlessly produce such elegant solutions.”
Peter Greenaway (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The truth is I am a perfect part of the exact point at which all individual human beings meet and the spectrum of voices weaving themselves in between and screaming 'every sick thought you've ever had and every twisted feeling you've ever felt are what make this painting complete.'”
Buddy Wakefield (born 1974) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Light, colour, love - let me come under your spell. Life can be represented only by a lively kind of painting. There is clarity in passion.”
Stefan Szczesny (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As a means of expression, painting must deliver universally valid statements, make allegorical reflections on life, and create new mythologies.”
Stefan Szczesny (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If London is a watercolor, New York is an oil painting.”
Peter Shaffer (1926–2016) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In The New York Times, April 13, 1975.
“A print of the painting, The Prayer At Valley Forge, depicting George Washington on bended knee, praying in the hard snow at Valley Forge, hangs over the desk in my office. If the practice of witchcraft, such as is allowed now at Fort Hood, is permitted to stand, one wonders what paintings will grace the walls of future generations.”
Bob Barr (born 1948) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "The Right of Wiccans to Practice in the Military" (20 May 1999), ReligiousTolerance.
“Yes, Wordsworth often personified objects in nature and gave them the human aspect, and personally I have done rather the reverse process in sculpture. I’ve often found that by taking formal ideas from landscape, and putting them into my sculpture I have, as it were, related a human figure to a mountain, and so got the same effect as a metaphor in painting.”
Henry Moore (1898–1986) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in 'The Listener', 13 November 1941, pp. 657-9; as cited in Henry Moore writings and Conversations, ed. Alan Wilkinson, University of California Press, California 2002, pp. 126-27
“Are you ever going to show me the painting?”
Sarah Dessen (born 1970) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Okay, okay." He stood up and went over to the corner, picking up the painting and bringing it over to rest against the bright pink belly of one of the mannequins. Then, he handed me a bandana. "Tie that on.”
Sarah Dessen (born 1970) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That, by the accident of an illegality in the codicil to his will, it should have been possible for Hugh Lane's pet collection to be snaffled by the British Government, is a fitting conclusion to the shabby story of England's appreciation of French impressionist painting.”
Frank Rutter (1876–1937) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Rutter, Frank. Art in My Time, p. 120. Rich & Cowan, London, 1933.
“Atheists don't hate fairies, leprechauns, or unicorns because they don't exist. It is impossible to hate something that doesn't exist. Atheists — like the painting experts hated the painter — hate God because He does exist.”
Ray Comfort (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Despite my fervour for many Surrealist painters, I was soon wary of the preeminence of those 'literary anecdotes' that made many works appear as 'genre clichés', not unlike nineteenth-century pastiches. They often ignored the visual possibilities of the painting medium.”
Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: as quoted in 'Tàpies: From Within', June/November 2013 - Presse Release text, Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC), p. 9
“It is essential to bear in mind that the world of the mystics, like that of modern physics, cannot always be 'explained' in normal words, but often 'shows' itself the better through visual images.. [from the accumulation of matter and of objects to the radicalism of a gesture, it is a matter of] painting the essential and nothing more (Tàpies is citing here Llull)”
Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: in his 1990 speech 'L'art modern, la mística i l'humor' ('Modern Art, Mysticism and Humour'), Barcelona: Editorial Empúries i Fundació Antoni Tàpies, 1993; as quoted in: 'Tàpies: From Within', June ─ November, 2013 - Pr…
“The tall fellow Bazille has done something I find quite fine: a young girl [in his painting 'View on the village' ] in a very light dress in the shadow of a tree beyond which one sees a town. There is a good deal of light, sunlight, He is trying to do what we [Berthe and her sister Edma] have so often tried to bring off: to paint a figure in the open air. This time I think he has succeed.”
Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) first seen 1869 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: in a letter to Berthe's sister Edma, after visiting the Salon of Paris in 1869, from: Morisot's Correspondence, p. 32; as quoted in The history of Impressionism by John Rewald, (Fourth edition), Museum of Modern Art, 19…
“It seems to me a painting [she is working on] like the one I gave Manet ['The Harbour at Lorient'] could perhaps sell, and that is all I care about.”
Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) first seen 1870 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: note about her first painting she started after the battle in Paris, 1870; in The Correspondence of Berthe Morisot with her family and friends', ed. Denis Rouart (transl. Betty W. Hubbard); Camden Press, London, 1986, p…
“Painting, which is essentially a rhythmic harmony of coloured spaces.”
Arthur Wesley Dow (1857–1922) said by 1922 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I am painting, driven by lively tensions, I want to express what’s going on in me. When that tension has ceased, when the life in me became visible, then something happened which had to happen. Over and over again you experience a work which is created in this way. What happened? It is hard to say, because it was not my mind that led but the inner desire that revealed its inner life.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) first seen 1930 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to H.P. Bremmer, 17-11-1930, City Archive The Hague, as quoted in: Bram van Velde, A Tribute, Municipal Museum De Lakenhal Leiden, Municipal Museum Schiedam, Museum de Wieger, Deurne 1994, p. 50 (English translat…
“Painting is so stupid, so simple. I paint to get out of the through. I paint my misery.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Painting is an eye, a blinded eye that continues to see, and sees what blinds it.. ..this tiny little thing, which is nothing, which dominates life.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: short quotes, 31 October 1966; p. 58
“Yes, I abandoned everything. Painting required it. It was all or nothing.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Painting is an aid to vision. It turns life, the complexity of life, into something visible. It reveals things that we don’t know how to see.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 2 April 1967; p. 62
“Mondrian? His mind was too subtle. He worked in the light. I work in the darkness.. .Mondrian is the Buddha of painting. I saw him once. You wondered how a man could radiate such charisma.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 2 April 1967; p. 62
“I paint the impossibility of painting.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Through painting I try to get closer to nothingness, to the void.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of course painting is ridiculous. But it’s the only way I've got to get closer to life.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't like talking. I don’t like people talking to me.. .Painting is silence.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Each painting contains so much suffering.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I look back to a recent painting, I can hardly bear th suffering in it.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Each painting is linked to a fundamental drama.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Perhaps he [ Mondrian ] was too faithful to a single discovery. And perhaps that kind of painting was right for the period. But now peace and harmony are no longer possible. There is only anguish.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What makes a painting fascinating is its sincerity. Sincerity is such a rare thing. Most people don't dare to be sincere.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source