Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,161,747 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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Art
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“Propaganda of sufficient age became art.”
Gregory Benford (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I often get asked what I would do to improve both elementary and high school. The first step would be to put more of an emphasis on hands-on classes such as art, music, sewing, woodworking, cooking, theater, auto mechanics and welding.”
Temple Grandin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The real resistance now is to an art which forces its audience to recognize and accept imaginatively, in their nerve ends, not the facts of life but the facts of death and violence: absurd, random, gratuitous, unjustified, and inescapably part of the society we have created.”
Al Alvarez (1929–2019) said by 2019 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I've made a lot of box art do a lot of horrible things over the years in the name of critique. SOPA could stop my dirty foreigner ways. (18 January 2012)”
Ben Croshaw (born 1983) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Evoking fear is, in itself, an art form – and nothing in the entire history of storytelling has explored it better than video games.”
Ben Croshaw (born 1983) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sacred art helps man find his own center, that kernel whose nature is to love God.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[In sacred art], true genius can develop without making innovations: it attains perfection, depth and power of expression almost imperceptibly by means of the imponderables of truth and beauty ripened in that humility without which there can be no true greatness.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Esoterism comprises four principal dimensions: an intellectual dimension, represented by doctrine; a volitive or technical dimension, which encompasses the direct and indirect means of the way; a moral dimension, which concerns the intrinsic and extrinsic virtues; and an aesthetic dimension, to which pertain symbolism and art from both the subjective and objective point of view.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The poets who most directly influenced me ... were Allen Tate, Elizabeth Bishop, and William Carlos Williams. An unlikely combination! ... but you can see that Bishop is a sort of bridge between Tate's formalism and Williams's informal art.”
Robert Lowell (1917–1977) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview by Stanley Kunitz, "Talk with Robert Lowell", The New York Times (Oct. 4, 1964), p. BR34
“Changing what you want to get done takes a second. Recalibrating & getting the new thing to happen is a martial art.”
David Allen (born 1945) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 7 December 2011
“The most brilliant scientific discoveries will in time change and perhaps grow obsolete as new scientific manifestations emerge. But art is eternal, for it reveals the inner landscape, which is the soul of man.”
Martha Graham (1894–1991) said by 1991 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If there is a special Hell for writers it would be in the forced contemplation of their own works, with all the misconceptions, the omissions, the failures that any finished work of art implies.”
John Dos Passos (1896–1970) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Looking Back on U.S.A.," New York Times, Oct 25 1959
“Supermarket tabloids and celebrity gossip shows are not just innocently shallow entertainment, but a fundamental part of a much larger movement that involves apathy, greed and hierarchy. Celebrity doesn’t have anything to do with art or craft. It’s about being rich and thinking that you’re better than everybody else.”
Joseph Gordon-Levitt (born 1981) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The New York Times, March 25, 2007.
“There's this barrier that goes up between the people who make the movies and the people who watch the movies. But the point of art is to have a connection between people. I think it's going to become much more of a dialogue, where everybody will watch everybody's stuff, as opposed to how it is now, where the huge corporations produce everything. I'm looking forward to seeing that.”
Joseph Gordon-Levitt (born 1981) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: New York Post, March 25, 2007
“Sea that breakest for ever, that breakest and never art broken.”
William Watson (poet) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is bias to think that the art of war is just for killing people. It is not to kill people, it is to kill evil. It is a stratagem to give life to many people by killing the evil of one person.”
Yagyū Munenori (1571–1646) said by 1646 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Japanese Art of War (1991) by Thomas Cleary
“Throwing down your own sword is also an art of war. If you have attained mastery of swordlessness, you will never lack for a sword. The opponent's sword is your sword. This is acting at the vanguard of the moment.”
Yagyū Munenori (1571–1646) said by 1646 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Soul of the Samurai (2005) by Thomas Cleary, p. 28
“I would no more quarrel with a man because of his religion than I would because of his art.”
Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Because most people are not sufficiently employed in themselves, they run about loose, hungering for employment, and satisfy themselves in various supererogatory occupations. The easiest of these occupations, which have all to do with making things already made, is the making of people: it is called the art of friendship.”
Laura Riding (1901–1991) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Myth" from Anarchism Is Not Enough (London: Jonathan Cape, 1928)
“The art of advertisement, after the American manner, has introduced into all our life such a lavish use of superlatives, that no standard of value whatever is intact.”
Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957) first seen 1932 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'Promise' as an Institution", in The Doom of Youth (London: Chatto & Windus, 1932).
“[T]he world created by Art — Fiction, Drama, Poetry etc. — must be sufficiently removed from the real world so that no character from the one could under any circumstances enter the other (the situation imagined by Pirandello), without the anomaly being apparent at once.”
Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957) said by 1957 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think that the loss of the house call has been the biggest blow to the art of medicine in this century. Not only has the patient lost this precious attention, but the physician has not found a replacement for the lost intimacy.”
Patch Adams (born 1945) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I love to see, when leaves depart, The clear anatomy arrive, Winter, the paragon of art, That kills all forms of life and feeling Save what is pure and will survive.”
Roy Campbell (poet) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life’s like art. You have to work hard to keep it simple and still have meaning.”
Charles de Lint (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[C]opyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work. [...] This result is neither unfair nor unfortunate. It is the means by which copyright advances the progress of science and art.”
Sandra Day O'Connor (1930–2023) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991)
“Hockey is an art. It requires speed, precision, and strength like other sports, but it also demands an extraordinary intelligence to develop a logical sequence of movements, a technique which is smooth, graceful and in rhythm with the rest of the game.”
Jacques Plante (1929–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Kevin Shea, "One on One with Jacques Plante," Legends of Hockey.net (2005-05-24)
“Regardless of its purpose, the humpback-whale song is the most complex piece of nonhuman composition on earth. Whether it's art, prayer, or booty call, the humpback song is an amazing thing to experience firsthand, and I suspect that even once the science of it is put to bed, it will remain, as long as they sing, magic.”
Christopher Moore (author) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No longer would we imprison thee though thou art all gentleness and would chat and jest with us by the hour.”
Samuel Laman Blanchard (1804–1845) said by 1845 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O Time! whose verdicts mock our own, The only righteous judge art thou!”
Thomas William Parsons (1819–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Hindus do not pay particular attention to alchemy, but no nation is entirely free from it, and one nation has more bias for it than another, which must not be construed as proving intelligence or ignorance; for we find that many intelligent people are entirely given to alchemy, whilst ignorant people ridicule the art and its adepts.”
Al-Biruni (973–1048) said by 1048 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Alberuni, quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 1
“He entered; but the mask he wore Concealed his face from me. Still, something I had seen before He brought to memory. "Who art thou? What thy rank, thy name?" I questioned, with surprise; "Thyself" the laughing answer came, "As seen of others' eyes.”
John B. Tabb (1845–1909) first seen 1894 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Stranger", in Poems (1894)
“His imperial fancy has laid all Nature under tribute, and has collected riches from every scene of the creation and every walk of art.”
Robert Hall (1764–1831) said by 1831 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Burke; Apology for the Freedom of the Press, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Is this wide world not large enough to fill thee, Nor Nature, nor that deep man's Nature, Art? Are they too thin, too weak and poor to still thee, Thou little heart?”
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Self-Question, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Fame in arms or art, however conspicuous, is naught, unless bottomed in virtue.”
Henry Lee III (1756–1818) said by 1818 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to his son, Charles Carter Lee, as quoted in R.E.Lee: A Biography (1934) by Douglas Southall Freeman, Vol. I, p.32.
“The subconscious plays a great part in art, that is to say that in conceiving & realizing a work a great deal happens which cannot be logically explained – the mind jumps from one stage to another much further on without there being traceable steps shown between – sudden solutions which cannot be followed step by step – in a word – inspiration.”
Henry Moore (1898–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yes. There was a period when I tried to avoid looking at Greek – and Renaissance – sculpture of any kind; when I thought that the Greek and Renaissance were the enemy and that one had to throw all that over and start again from the beginning of primitive art. It's only in the last ten or fifteen years that I've begun to know how wonderful the elgin Marbles are.”
Henry Moore (1898–1986) first seen 1960 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from 'Henry Moore', an interview by Donald, in 'Horizon', New York, Nov. 1960
“All art should have a certain mystery and should make demands on the spectator. Giving a sculpture or a drawing too explicit a title takes away part of that mystery so that the spectator moves on to the next object, making no effort to ponder the meaning of what he has just seen. Everyone thinks that he or she looks but they don't really, you know.”
Henry Moore (1898–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Elizabeth Day, "The Moore Legacy," The Observer (2008-07-27),
“Oh, my soul! why art thou so often disquieted within thee? How is it that thou hast so little faith? Wilt thou never learn that Jesus has even the least of His little boats always under His watchful eye, and all the winds and the waves obey Him?”
Theodore L. Cuyler (1822–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The real question is the dehumanization of Africa and Africans which this age-long attitude has fostered and continues to foster in the world. And the question is whether a novel which celebrates this dehumanization, which depersonalizes a portion of the human race, can be called a great work of art.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Art doesn't always mirror life and life's hard sometimes.”
Ben Kowalewicz (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The roots of art and play lie very close together.”
Angus Wilson (1913–1991) said by 1991 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't think it's a good idea, as a rule, for artists to explain their art, even if they can. Jorge Luis Borges puts it arrogantly: God shouldn't stoop to theology. A modern painter put it more politely and poetically: Birds have no need of ornithology.”
John Barth (1930–2024) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: More Troll Than Cabbage" (1967), p. 78
“Our ability to experience life may be more or less limited by inexperience of art as well as vice versa, since each tends to increase the wattage of the great illuminator of both — namely the imagination.”
John Barth (1930–2024) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Limits of Imagination" (1985), p. 56
“When your son participates in individual sports, plus both organized and pick-up team sports, he will be experiencing sports as a boy-friendly liberal art.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It seems to me that art is a great miracle-it is the showing forth of the Holy Spirit transubstantiation. It is to find and proclaim the poetry of life, without which there is no life.”
Jim Ede (1895–1990) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Introduction, in Engrave Glass: David Peace, Cambridge 1973.
“The role of art is to give food for thought,to act as a stimulant,to entice the onlooker to inspect things, people,emotions,from a new point of view.”
Jim Ede (1895–1990) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Undated manuscript c 1941. Kettle's Yard archive, Cambridge.
“One judges an epoch as much by its Art as by its customs .”
Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (1891–1915) said by 1915 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Sophie Brzeska-Savage Messiah By H S (Jim) Ede Heinimann (1931)
“On women Nature did bestow two eyes, Like heaven's bright lamps, in matchless beauty shining, Whose beams do soonest captivate the wise, And wary heads, made rare by art's refining”
Robert Greene (dramatist) first seen 1592 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Philomela (1592); Dyce, p. 315
“Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee; When thou art old there’s grief enough for thee. Mother's wag, pretty boy. Father's sorrow, father's joy; When thy father first did see Such a boy by him and me, He was glad, I was woe; Fortune changed made him so, When he left his pretty boy, Last his sorrow, first his joy.”
Robert Greene (dramatist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source