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Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,159,190 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

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Art

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“My responsibility as an artist is to turn up at the page or the piano or the microphone. The rest is up to God.”
Nick Cave (born 1957) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Daily Telegraph (Novevember 20, 1997)
“The actualising of God through the medium of the love song remains my prime motivation as an artist.”
Nick Cave (born 1957) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Given during a lecture at the Vienna Poetry Festival (1998)
“I listen to his records and go to his concerts. That's the greatest compliment I can pay an artist.”
Nick Cave (born 1957) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Source: Nick Cave vs. Iggy Pop (1999)
“An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way.”
Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If we are only as the potter's clay Made to be fashioned as the artist wills, And broken into shards if we offend The eye of Him who made us, it is well.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1809–1894) said by 1894 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The author had not followed the precedents of any other artist, nor has he been able to copy Nature itself.. ..He who departs from Nature will surely merits high esteem, since he has to put before thee yes of the public forms and poses which have existed previously in the darkness and confusion of an irrational mind..”
Francisco Goya (1746–1828) said by 1828 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Perfect love is rare indeed — for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain.”
Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To send light into the depths of the human heart -- this is the artist's calling!”
Robert Schumann (1810–1856) first seen 1856 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quotes in: John Sullivan Dwight (1856) Dwight's Journal of Music, Vol. 7-8, p. 12
“The image of rock and roll since Elvis has ranged from teen rebellion to challenging of the status quo. It represented freedom in the 60's, but lately it represents corporate hegemony, the opposite of what hippies envisioned at Woodstock. The RIAA to many consumers today symbolizes oppression, oppression of both artist and consumer.”
Richard Menta first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Source The RIAA Settles Fast With 12-year-old Trader - 9/10/2003
“The artist’s performance is always more or less aleatory.”
Samuel R. Delany (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you were an artist or novelist, or a poet or somebody like that, nobody would think it odd if you worked in your own home. In science there's none of this at all. I'm almost the only independent scientist in Britain. Everybody else works in large institutions, universities, or industrial labs. Why should one expect scientists to work that way?”
James Lovelock (1919–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To be a qawwal is more than being a performer, more than being an artist,One must be willing to release one's mind and soul from one's body to achieve ecstasy through music. Qawwali is enlightenment itself.”
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (1948–1997) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan ,1993, a winter performance at the Gateway Theater in Chicago,Interviewed by Andy Carvin, http://edwebproject.org/nusrat.html
“The impulse of nature, fused through the personality of the artist by laws arising from the particular nature of the medium, produces the rhythm and the personal expression of a work. Then the life of the composition becomes a spiritual unity.”
Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dreams and reality are united in our imagination. The artist possesses the means to create only after he has effective command of his faculty of empathy which he must develop simultaneously with his imaginative capacity.”
Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Did you not tell me once that patronage of the artist was the only valuable vocation to which a prince might aspire?”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You can grow grapes in almost any part of the world. You just have to develop your palate enough to realize wine is an expression of the place where you make it. You don't have to take over the world; just be an artist and express your area.”
Maynard James Keenan (born 1964) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: George Varga (November 7, 2008) "Tool lead singer hits the right notes in the winemaking community", The San Diego Union-Tribune, p. E-1.
“One of my biggest heroes in music has been David Bowie. He's said, `I'm going to be a painter now, or I'm going to do some films,' and his audience is very forgiving, because they understand him as an artist. Whether you agree or like the result, you respect that he's expressing his artistic feelings.”
Maynard James Keenan (born 1964) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Record staff (March 22, 2000) "Music News & Notes", The Record, p. Y4.
“With every artist comes the image he portrays and the picture that he paints”
Eminem (born 1972) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: One Day at a Time" (featured on Tupac: Resurrection, 2003)
“I don't think I'd be very good at what you'd call an ordinary job. I think I might be an artist, mixed media. And that is still something I'm interested in pursuing at some point, but I have this fear of taking my eye off the ball, and get distracted from that acting thing.”
Gillian Anderson (born 1968) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Guardian "Gillian Anderson webchat – as it happened" (February 6, 2015)
“A man is an artist only at certain moments, by an effort of will. Objects have the same appearance for everybody.”
Edgar Degas (1834–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I always suspect an artist who is successful before he is dead.”
Edgar Degas (1834–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: John Murray Gibbon, Pagan Love (1922), ch. xiv
“At his best, things do not happen to the artist; he happens to them.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It seems to be the easiest thing in the world these days to make scurrilous accusations against Muslims, and in my case it directly impacts on my relief work and damages my reputation as an artist. The harm done is often difficult to repair.”
Cat Stevens (born 1948) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Singer Islam gets libel damages" BBC News (15 February 2005)
“Aesthetic value is often the by-product of the artist striving to do something else.”
Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diaries of Evelyn Waugh (1976)
“Underlying this succession of moments which constitutes the superficial existence of beings and things, and which is continually modifying and transforming them, one can search for a truer, more essential character, which the artist will seize so that he may give to reality a more lasting interpretation.”
Henri Matisse (1869–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The simplest means are those which best enable an artist to express himself. His means of expression must derive almost all of necessity from his temperament.”
Henri Matisse (1869–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An artist must possess Nature. He must identify himself with her rhythms, by effort that will prepare the mastery which will later enable him to express himself in his own language.”
Henri Matisse (1869–1954) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In a letter to Mr. Clifford, February 14, 1948; as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Ghiberti to Gainsborough, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson , London, 1963, p. 238
“It is only after years of preparation that the young [artist] should touch color — not color used descriptively, that is, but as a means of personal expression.”
Henri Matisse (1869–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted by Theodore F. Wolff in The Christian Science Monitor (25 March 1985)
“The artist begins with a vision — a creative operation requiring effort. Creativity takes courage.”
Henri Matisse (1869–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Artist to Artist : Inspiration and Advice from Visual Artists Past & Present (1998), p. 62
“Well, method is, it seems to me, a natural growth out of a need, and from a need the modern artist has found new ways of expressing the world about him. I happen to find ways that are different from the usual techniques, which seems a little strange at the moment, but I don't think there's anything very different about it. I paint on the floor and this isn't unusual – the Orientals did that.”
Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) said by 1956 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the Artist rises high enough to achieve the Beautiful, the symbol by which he makes it perceptible to mortal senses becomes of little value in his eyes, while his spirit possesses itself in the enjoyment of the reality.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) first seen 1851 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Hawthorne and His Mosses" (1851) by Herman Melville
“Nobody, I think, ought to read poetry, or look at pictures or statues, who cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or artist has actually expressed.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) said by 1864 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The monastic man is an artist. The philosopher Appoints man’s place in music, say, today. But the priest desires. The philosopher desires.And not to have is the beginning of desire. To have what is not is its ancient cycle.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I eagerly await new concepts and processes. I believe that the electronic image will be the next major advance. Such systems will have their own inherent and inescapable structural characteristics, and the artist and functional practitioner will again strive to comprehend and control them.”
Ansel Adams (1902–1984) first seen 1981 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Negative (1981), introduction to second edition
“I am reverential to great stars. I don't want sexual congress with them. The writer in me reveres the artist in them.”
Camille Paglia (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Old clothes do not make a tortured artist.”
Kevin Rowland (born 1953) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: liner notes to Searching For the Young Soul Rebels (1980)
“Enjoyment of the work consists in participation in the creative state of the artist.”
Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) said by 1976 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If a good editor will let me tell my story with the right artist, I'm happy.”
Brian K. Vaughan (born 1976) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am not an artist and never have been. Rather I am like a craftsman and feel very close to the mediaeval artisans who produced their work anonymously and who, along with their apprentices, had a true feeling for the physical materials they were working with.”
Werner Herzog (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]he job of mass entertainment is to cajole, seduce and flatter consumers to let them know that what they thought was right is right, and that their tastes and their immediate gratification are of the utmost concern of the purveyor. The job of the artist, on the other hand, is to say, wait a second, to the contrary, everything that we have thought is wrong. Let's reexamine it.”
David Mamet (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Without solitude, Love will not stay long by your side... Without solitude, no plant or animal can survive, no soil can remain productive for any length of time, no child can learn about life, no artist can create, no work can grow and be transformed.”
Paulo Coelho (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The old-fashioned idea that the simple piling up of experiences, one on top of another, can make you an artist, is, of course, so much rubbish. If acting were just a matter of experience, then any busy harlot could make Garbo’s Camille pale.”
Helen Hayes (1900–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now I have no idea how this has come about - probably a rumour spread by my enemies - but apparently there's a general belief among some sections of the surf community that I am a bit of a drop-in artist.”
Tom Carroll (surfer) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The hallmark of the minor artist is to be obsessed with style as an end in itself.”
Robert Hughes (1938–2012) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Alex Katz" (1986)
“The greater the artist, the greater the doubt; perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.”
Robert Hughes (1938–2012) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Modernism's Patriarch (Cezanne)", Time magazine (10 June 1996)
“The ordinary man casts a shadow. In a way we do not quite understand, the man of genius casts light. Instinctively, we flinch from this light. We assure ourselves that genius must pay a terrible price. Often history bears us out: the creator, the supreme artist, the master of politics carries the scars of his greatness.”
George Steiner (1929–2020) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Not a Preface, but a Word of Thanks," foreword to Unfinished Journey by Yehudi Menuhin (1977).
“I don't believe in censorship, but I do believe that an artist has to take some moral responsibility for what he or she is putting out there. And I think a lot of these young kids are going to have to learn the hard way before they realize that you can actually do some damage if you're being careless or frivolous in what you're saying.”
Tom Petty (1950–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Artists aren't necessarily business people. And they aren't necessarily aware of all the things that go on in their names. Some just want to make some music, but there is a lot of greed among artists as well. Whether or not we know it, we are all to blame. I think it's time — starting with the artist — to try to be a little more responsible and aware of what goes on in our name.”
Tom Petty (1950–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source