Even More Quotations on Art

Thanks again to brainquote.com for this unverified list of quotations from famous people, most of them artists.

“The beginning is the most important part of the work.” — Plato

“The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box.” — Henri Cartier-Bresson

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

“The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

“The history of art is the history of revivals.” — Samuel Butler

“The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art’s audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.” — Paul Gauguin

“The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you’re an artist.” — David Hockney

“The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract.” — Ellen Key

“The most profound things are inexpressible.” — Jenny Holzer

“The negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.” — Ansel Adams

“The object of art is to give life a shape.” — William Shakespeare

“The perfection of art is to conceal art.” — Marcus Fabius Quintilian

“The principle of art is to pause, not bypass.” — Jerzy Kosinski

“The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke.” — Jerzy Kosinski

“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.” — Pablo Picasso

“The real art of conducting consists in transitions.” — Gustav Mahler

“The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed – it is a process of elimination.” — Elbert Hubbard

“The task of art today is to bring chaos into order.” — Theodor Adorno

“The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.” — Michelangelo

“The very essence of the creative is its novelty, and hence we have no standard by which to judge it.” — Carl Rogers

“The waking mind is the least serviceable in the arts.” — Henry Miller

“The writer, when he is also an artist, is someone who admits what others don’t dare reveal.” — Elia Kazan

“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.” — Ansel Adams

“There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.” — Ansel Adams

“Things are beautiful if you love them.” — Jean Anouilh

“This world is but a canvas to our imagination.” — Henry David Thoreau

“Time extracts various values from a painter’s work. When these values are exhausted the pictures are forgotten, and the more a picture has to give, the greater it is.” — Henri Matisse

“To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.” — Henry David Thoreau

“To an engineer, good enough means perfect. With an artist, there’s no such thing as perfect.” — Alexander Calder

“To make us feel small in the right way is a function of art; men can only make us feel small in the wrong way.” — E. M. Forster

“To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event.” — Henri Cartier-Bresson

“To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts – such is the duty of the artist.” — Robert Schumann

“Treat a work of art like a prince. Let it speak to you first.” — Arthur Schopenhauer

“Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.” — Michelangelo

“True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.” — Albert Einstein

“Trying to force creativity is never good.” — Sarah McLachlan

“Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass.” — Fran Lebowitz

“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” — Jonathan Swift

“Vitality is radiated from exceptional art and architecture.” — Arthur Erickson

“We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth, at least the truth that is given to us to understand.” — Pablo Picasso

“We have art in order not to die of the truth.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

“What art offers is space – a certain breathing room for the spirit.” — John Updike

“What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.” — W. H. Auden

“When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a [nature] made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art.” — Paul Cezanne

“When I make art, I think about its ability to connect with others, to bring them into the process.” — Jim Hodges

“When that shutter clicks, anything else that can be done afterward is not worth consideration.” — Edward Steichen

“Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.” — George Bernard Shaw

“Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others.” — Albert Camus

“Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.” — Winston Churchill

“Works of art, in my opinion, are the only objects in the material universe to possess internal order, and that is why, though I don’t believe that only art matters, I do believe in Art for Art’s sake.” — E. M. Forster

“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” — Ansel Adams

“You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.” — William Blake