Art Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate hut at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

The art of being taught is the art of discovery, as the art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery to take place

The main thing now is not to paint precociously but to be, or at least become, an individual. The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression, whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions.

Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it is no mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself.

All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.

But since the world, which thou art to strive against, is not without thee, but within thee, it follows, that it is also to be conquered not without, but within thee.

No one should ever work.
Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost all the evil you'd care to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for work. In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working.
That doesn't mean we have to stop doing things. It does mean creating a new way of life based on play; in other words, a ludic revolution. By "play" I mean also festivity, creativity, conviviality, commensality, and maybe even art. There is more to play than child's play, as worthy as that is. I call for a collective adventure in generalized joy and freely interdependent exuberance. Play isn't passive.

Art is the final cunning of the human soul which would rather do anything than face the gods.

Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art.

Art has to move you and design does not, unless it's a good design for a bus.

Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification — the art of discerning what we may with advantage omit.

Books minister to our knowledge, to our guidance, and to our delight, by their truth, their uprightness, and their art.

George Henry Lewes

Art and religion first; then philosophy; lastly science. That is the order of the great subjects of life, that's their order of importance.

It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academism. There is no such thing as good painting about nothing. We assert that only that subject matter is valid which is tragic and timeless. That is why we profess spiritual kinship with primitive and archaic art.

Someone said that Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.

John W. Gardner

Art, to me is the interpretation of the impression which nature makes upon the eye and brain. The word 'Impressionism' as applied to art has been abused, and in the general acceptance of the term has become perverted. [...] The true impressionism is realism. So many people do not observe. They take the ready-made axioms laid down by others, and walk blindly in a rut without trying to see for themselves.

Evil is done without effort, naturally, it is the working of fate; good is always the product of an art.

Charles Baudelaire

Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.

Works of art make rules but rules do not make works of art.

Minority art, vernacular art, is marginal art. Only on the margins does growth occur.

I am for the art of underwear and the art of taxicabs. I am for the art of ice cream cones dropped on concrete.

Claes Oldenburg

We must have religion for religion's sake, morality for morality's sake, as with art for art's sake…the beautiful cannot be the way to what is useful, or to what is good, or to what is holy; it leads only to itself.

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

All things are artificial, for nature is the Art of God.

It is wrong to expect a reward for your struggles. The reward is the act of struggle itself, not what you win. Even though you can't expect to defeat the absurdity of the world, you must make that attempt. That's morality, that's religion. That's art. That's life.