Art quotes

Paradoxically though it may seem, it is nonetheless true that life imitates art far more
than art imitates life.
Oscar Wilde

The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure.
Dale Carnegie

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture,
and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Art for art's sake is a philosophy of the well-fed.
Frank Lloyd Wright

Life is brief, art is long.
Hippocrates

Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife.
Kahlil Gibran

If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to
some music at least once a week.
Charles Darwin

True artists are prophets. I don't want to be that prophetic in that sense because it's so
lonely.
Yoko Ono

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove
all traces of reality.
Pablo Picasso

Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.
Edgar Allan Poe

Art is the great democrat, calling forth creative genius from every sector of society,
disregarding race or religion or wealth or color.
John F. Kennedy

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.
Oscar Wilde

An artist who theorizes about his work is no longer artist but critic.
H. G. Wells

I feel that art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A
stillness which characterizes prayer, too, and the eye of the storm. I think that art has
something to do with an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.
Saul Bellow

An artist reveals his naked soul in his work.
Ayn Rand

I passionately hate the idea of being with it; I think an artist has always to be out of step
with his time.
Orson Welles

Art is the supreme task and the truly metaphysical activity in this life.
Friedrich Nietzsche

The poet is one who is able to keep the fresh vision of the child alive.
Anais Nin

Music has given me peace. I can remember occasions when music instantly tranquillized my
mind, when I was greatly agitated over something. Music has helped me to overcome anger.
Mahatma Gandhi

The true artist is a man who believes absolutely in himself, because he is absolutely himself.
Oscar Wilde

Poetry begins in delight and ends in wisdom.
Robert Frost

The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other
arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence.
Arthur Schopenhauer

Art calls for complete mastery of techniques, developed by reflection within the soul.
Bruce Lee

It is not in life, but in art that self-fulfillment is to be found.
Wilson Mizner

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

There are more valid facts and details in works of art than there are in history books.
Charlie Chaplin

I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his
portrait.
Salvador Dali

Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who
implement change after the fact.
William S. Burroughs

It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe