Art has been created and enjoyed since the beginning of humankind. Art takes many forms including painting, drawing, writing, acting, music, and more. It serves as therapy, expression, protest, and entertainment. There have been many beautiful quotes about art, so we compiled the best quotes about art from artists, writers, actors, politicians, and philosophers. Check out our list of favorite quotes about art below, and be prepared to inspire your students (and yourself!) to create.
Quotes About Art by Famous Visual Artists
Art has to move you and design does not, unless it’s a good design for a bus. —David Hockney
I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality. —Frida Kahlo
We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand. —Pablo Picasso
Architecture is the art of how to waste space. —Philip Johnson
Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing. —Salvador Dalí
I think half the point of painting a picture is that you don’t know what will happen … that if painters did know what was going to happen, they wouldn’t bother to do it. —Lucian Freud
Philosophers and aestheticians may offer elegant and profound definitions of art and beauty, but for the painter they are all summed up in this phrase: to create a harmony. —Gino Severini
The more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people. —Vincent van Gogh
We don’t make mistakes, we have happy accidents. —Bob Ross
Creativity takes courage. —Henri Matisse
If I knew what the picture was going to be like, I wouldn’t make it. —Cindy Sherman
I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life—and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do. —Georgia O’Keeffe
Use your blood to paint. Keep painting until you faint. Keep painting until you die. —Yoko Ono
A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. —Edgar Degas
Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. —Berthold Auerbach
Sculpture is the best comment that a painter can make on painting. —Pablo Picasso
It is for the artist … in portrait painting to put on canvas something more than the face the model wears for that one day: to paint the man, in short, as well as his features. —James McNeill Whistler
The artist’s world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep. —Paul Strand
The sculptor, and the painter also, should be trained in these liberal arts: grammar, geometry, philosophy, medicine, astronomy, perspective, history, anatomy, theory of design, arithmetic. —Lorenzo Ghiberti
A dead princess is only complete when surrounded by gaping crowds with their cameras out, or the opportunity to photograph yourself pulling an amazed expression when a killer whale leaps from a toilet. —Banksy
In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that cannot be explained. —Georges Braque
Millions of artists create; only a few thousand are discussed or accepted by the spectator and many less again are consecrated by posterity. —Marcel Duchamp
Painting is the pattern of one’s own nervous system being projected on canvas. —Francis Bacon
Quotes About Art by Philosophers
The culture of a civilization is the art and literature through which it rises to consciousness of itself and defines its vision of the world. —Roger Scruton
Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth. —Theodor W. Adorno
As for the story, whether the poet takes it ready made or constructs it for himself, he should first sketch its general outline, and then fill in the episodes and amplify in detail. —Aristotle
The most beautiful colors laid on at random, give less pleasure than a black-and-white drawing. —Aristotle
All history is art, because to tell a story is art, whereas to tell a true story is history —R.G. Collingwood
When shall we see poets born? After a time of disasters and great misfortunes, when harrowed nations begin to breathe again. And then, shaken by the terror of such spectacles, imaginations will paint things entirely strange to those who have not witnessed them. —Denis Diderot
Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. —Thomas Merton
Ideas matter—and philosophy is the art of thinking about them rigorously. In my view, that should be done in as public a forum as possible. —Sam Harris
Art, it is said, is not a mirror, but a hammer: it does not reflect, it shapes. —Leon Trotsky
Art is the supreme task and the truly metaphysical activity in this life. —Friedrich Nietzsche
The productions of all arts are kinds of poetry and their craftsmen are all poets. —Plato
There are three arts which are concerned with all things: one which uses, another which makes, a third which imitates them. —Plato
Without material art can do nothing, material without art does possess a certain value, while the perfection of art is better than the best material. —Quintilian
Astronomy was born of superstition; eloquence of ambition, hatred, falsehood, and flattery; geometry of avarice; physics of an idle curiosity; and even moral philosophy of human pride. Thus the arts and sciences owe their birth to our vices. —Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Psychology is a science and teaching is an art; and sciences never generate arts directly out of themselves. —William James
The rude beginnings of every art acquire a greater celebrity than the art in perfection; he who first played the fiddle was looked upon as a demigod. —Voltaire
The urge for destruction is also a creative urge. —Mikhail Bakunin
Quotes About Art by Composers and Musicians
Works of art make rules but rules do not make works of art. —Claude Debussy
You don’t finish something because you need to get it done. You finish something because you have something to say. —Sarah McLachlan
Art is making something out of nothing and selling it. —Frank Zappa
In order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love? —Igor Stravinsky
To be deprived of art and left alone with philosophy is to be close to hell. —Igor Stravinsky
If you don’t call it art, you’re likely to get a better result. —Brian Eno
Try to make things that can become better in other people’s minds than they were in yours. —Brian Eno
We must be patient, and believe that inspiration will come to those who can master their disinclination. —Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
It is already a wonderful thing if just the main ideas and general outline of a work come without the racking of brains, through that supernatural and inexplicable force we call inspiration. —Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
If it is art, it is not for all, and if it is for all, it is not art. —Arnold Schoenberg
An artistic impression is substantially the resultant of two components. One what the work of art gives the onlooker—the other, what he is capable of giving to the work of art. —Arnold Schoenberg
Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets. —Ludwig van Beethoven
The best music always results from ecstasies of knowledge. —Alban Berg
The gift of imagination is by no means an exclusive property of the artist; it is a gift we all share; to some degree or other all of us, all of you, are endowed with the powers of fantasy. —Leonard Bernstein
A work of art does not answer questions: it provokes them; and its essential meaning is in the tension between their contradictory answers. —Leonard Bernstein
Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity. —Charles Mingus
Passion is one great force that unleashes creativity, because if you’re passionate about something, then you’re more willing to take risks. —Yo-Yo Ma
The first mistake of art is to assume that it’s serious. —Lester Bangs
My role in society, or any artist or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all. —John Lennon
Surrealism had a great effect on me because then I realized that the imagery in my mind wasn’t insanity. Surrealism to me is reality. —John Lennon
Listen, real poetry doesn’t say anything; it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through any one that suits you. —Jim Morrison
All were artists, playing foolish, having fights and making love as if the rest of the world had no racial problems whatsoever. —Chuck Berry
Quotes About Art by Writers
Art is the stored honey of the human soul. —Theodore Dreiser
Innocence of heart and violence of feeling are necessary in any kind of superior achievement: The arts cannot exist without them. —Louise Bogan
That is why I believe that art is so much more significant than either economics or philosophy. It is the direct measure of man’s spiritual vision. —Herbert Read
Surely all art is the result of one’s having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further. —Rainer Maria Rilke
I sometimes wondered what the use of any of the arts was. The best thing I could come up with was what I call the canary in the coal mine theory of the arts. This theory says that artists are useful to society because they are so sensitive. … They keel over like canaries in poison coal mines long before more robust types realize that there is any danger whatsoever. —Kurt Vonnegut
The practice of art isn’t to make a living. It’s to make your soul grow. —Kurt Vonnegut
In scorn of nature, art gave lifeless life. —William Shakespeare
Art and religion first; then philosophy; lastly science. That is the order of the great subjects of life, that’s their order of importance. —Muriel Spark
Artists are always the Johnny Appleseeds of gentrification. —Scott Hutchins
Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. —Thomas Merton
I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, No. No, I’m finished. Bye. And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won’t do that. —Maya Angelou
The enemy of art is the absence of limitations. —Orson Welles
Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art. —Maya Angelou
It is the art of mankind to polish the world, and every one who works is scrubbing in some part. —Henry David Thoreau
The conscious utterance of thought, by speech or action, to any end, is art. —Ralph Waldo Emerson
Art is the need to create; but in its essence, immense and universal, it is impatient of working with lame or tied hands, and of making cripples and monsters, such as all pictures and statues are. Nothing less than the creation of man and nature is its end. —Ralph Waldo Emerson
Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter’s honor. —Ernest Hemingway
Truth in art is the unity of a thing with itself: the outward rendered expressive of the inward: the soul made incarnate: the body instinct with spirit. For this reason there is no truth comparable to sorrow. —Oscar Wilde
The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone. —James Baldwin
Artists are here to disturb the peace. —James Baldwin
And really the purpose of art—for me, fiction—is to alert, to indicate to stop, to say: Make certain that when you rush through you will not miss the moment which you might have had, or might still have. —Jerzy Kosinski
I collect human relationships very much the way others collect fine art. —Jerzy Kosinski
The person who wants nothing, hopes for nothing, and fears nothing can never be an artist. —Anton Chekhov
You are right to demand that an artist engage his work consciously, but you confuse two different things: solving the problem and correctly posing the question. —Anton Chekhov
Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them. —Anais Nin
There are two avenues from the little passions and the drear calamities of earth; both lead to the heaven and away from hell—Art and Science. But art is more godlike than science; science discovers, art creates. —Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death. —William Blake
I don’t understand how any good art could fail to be political. —Barbara Kingsolver
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival. —C.S. Lewis
To discover the mode of life or of art whereby my spirit could express itself in unfettered freedom. —James Joyce
Really I don’t like human nature unless all candied over with art. —Virginia Woolf
How life did imitate art sometimes. And the cruder the art, the closer the imitation. —Stephen King
Quotes About Art by Mathematicians and Scientists
The greatest value of a picture is when it forces us to notice what we never expected to see. —John Tukey
True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist. —Albert Einstein
Is there not a certain satisfaction in the fact that natural limits are set to the life of the individual, so that at the conclusion it may appear as a work of art? —Albert Einstein
One can envisage an end of science no more readily than one can envisage an end of imaginative literature or the fine arts. —Peter Medawar
One of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one’s own ever-shifting desires. —Albert Einstein
Every science touches art at some points—every art has its scientific side; the worst man of science is he who is never an artist, and the worst artist is he who is never a man of science. —Armand Trousseau
How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection. An artist is emotional, they think, and uses only his intuition; he sees all at once and has no need of reason. A scientist is cold, they think, and uses only his reason; he argues carefully step by step, and needs no imagination. That is all wrong. —Isaac Asimov
All great scientists have, in a certain sense, been great artists; the man with no imagination may collect facts, but he cannot make great discoveries. —Karl Pearson
Space belongs to all of us. There is science in dance and art in science. —Mae Jemison
Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability. —William Osler
Errors are not in the art but in the artificers. —Isaac Newton
Art is “I,” science is “we.” —Claude Bernard
Quotes About Art by Actors and Directors
The thing about performance, even if it’s only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities. —Daniel Day-Lewis
To that extent that you can sustain and maintain that childlike part of your personality is probably the best part of acting. —Paul Newman
I’ve had different opportunities in my life, but I’ve tried to maintain the spirit of an amateur. Our culture roots everything in the barometer of success and how much money you make. But if you really just aspire to a life in the arts, it’s really not a barometer at all. —Ethan Hawke
It’s hard to act in the morning. The muse isn’t even awake. —Keanu Reeves
The real actor—like any real artist—has a direct line to the collective heart. —Bette Davis
Making films has got to be one of the hardest endeavors known to humankind. —Spike Lee
Actors are agents of change. A film, a piece of theater, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world. —Alan Rickman
It used to be that we in films were the lowest form of art. Now we have something to look down on. —Billy Wilder (on television)
I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don’t like that, then tough tills, don’t go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don’t do homages. —Quentin Tarantino
Once a month the sky falls on my head, I come to, and I see another movie I want to make. —Steven Spielberg
I regard myself as an entertainer much more than an artist. —Peter Jackson
There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life. —Federico Fellini
Quotes About Art by Famous Political Figures
Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries. —Jimmy Carter
Above all, we are coming to understand that the arts incarnate the creativity of a free people. When the creative impulse cannot flourish, when it cannot freely select its methods and objects, when it is deprived of spontaneity, then society severs the root of art. —President John F. Kennedy
To encourage literature and the arts is a duty which every good citizen owes to his country. —George Washington
Now I think, speaking roughly, by leadership we mean the art of getting someone else to do something that you want done because he wants to do it. —President Dwight D. Eisenhower
And that, I think, is what the arts and the humanities do—they lift up our identities, and make us see ourselves in each other. —President Barack Obama
Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse. —Winston Churchill
A world turned into a stereotype, a society converted into a regiment, a life translated into a routine, make it difficult for either art or artists to survive. Crush individuality in society and you crush art as well. Nourish the conditions of a free life and you nourish the arts, too. —President Franklin D. Roosevelt
