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Quotes about art

621 quotes from 285 people

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There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882Nature (1836), Nature
- Nature
- Poetry
I don’t distinguish between magic and art.
Alan Mooreborn 1953De Abaitua interview (1998)
We live in a time which has created the art of the absurd. It is our art.
Norman Mailer1923–2007Cannibals and Christians (1966), Introducing our Argument
Art would not be important if life were not important, and life is important.
James Baldwin1924–1987“An interview with James Baldwin” (1961)
- Life & Death
The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art from becoming ridiculous.
Raymond Chandler1888–1959“Great Thought” (19 February 1938), published in The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler (1976)
- Science
The bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and conscious where he ought to be unconscious.
T. S. Eliot1888–1965Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919), Part II
- Poetry
Culture looks beyond machinery, culture hates hatred; culture has one great passion, the passion for sweetness and light.
Matthew Arnold1822–1888Culture and Anarchy (1869), Ch. I, Sweetness and Light
The path led out of rational confines. When you start thinking about art and creativity, rationality is not big enough to contain it all.
Alan Mooreborn 1953De Abaitua interview (1998)
One difference between God’s work and man’s is, that, while God’s work cannot mean more than he meant, man’s must mean more than he meant.
George MacDonald1824–1905The Fantastic Imagination (1893)
- God
Poetry (like a grand personality) is a growth of many generations — many rare combinations.
To have great poets, there must be great audiences too.
Walt Whitman1819–1892Complete Prose Works (1892), III. Notes Left Over 3. Ventures, on an Old Theme, p.324
- Poetry
If we are to change our world view, images have to change. The artist now has a very important job to do. He’s not a little peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he’s really needed.
David Hockney1937–2026Interview with Paul Joyce, New York, (September 1986) quoted in Hockney on Photography, ed. Wendy Brown (1988)
In my music, I’m trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is because I’m changing all the time.
Charles Mingus1922–1979Statement to Nat Hentoff , as quoted in California Rock, California Sound: The Music of Los Angeles and Southern California (1979) by Anthony Fawcett, p. 56
- Change
- Music
Science is the poetry of reality.
Richard Dawkinsborn 1941The Enemies of Reason, “Slaves to Superstition” [1.01], 13 August 2007, timecode 00:38:16ff
- Poetry
- Science
‘Tis verse that gives
Immortal youth to mortal maids.
Walter Savage Landor1775–1864“Verse” (“Past ruin’d Ilion Helen lives”)
- Poetry
It seems to me, when I see nature, that I see it ready made, completely written — but then, try to do it!
Claude Monet1840–1926Letter to Frédéric Bazille (15 July 1864)
- Nature