Art Quotes

I was the executive editor on a little magazine called Greek Accent, whose only claim to fame is that its art director went on to be the art director of Discover for many years.

It's important to debunk the myths of Africa being this benighted continent civilized only when white people arrived. In fact, Africans had been creators of culture for thousands of years before. These were very intelligent, subtle and sophisticated people, with organized societies and great art.

Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.

The art of medicine was to be properly learned only from its practice and its exercise.

Mass consumption, advertising, and mass art are a corporate Frankenstein; while they reinforce the system, they also undermine it.

All great art is born of the metropolis.

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

We may not like our times or many aspects of the time we live in but that is not the fault of art as such.

Because the stuff that they feed kids now, they'll have a bunch of idiots in the next millennium as far as art and culture is concerned.

Writing is my job. I don't think of it as art.

The person who knows one thing and does it better than anyone else, even if it only be the art of raising lentils, receives the crown he merits. If he raises all his energy to that end, he is a benefactor of mankind and its rewarded as such.

Mathematics is, as it were, a sensuous logic, and relates to philosophy as do the arts, music, and plastic art to poetry.

Once you decide that it is the art that is important and not how popular and well received you are, you no longer have an albatross.

Songwriting is an art unto itself, not to be confused with performing.

I don't watch television, I think it destroys the art of talking about oneself.

If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

So I like to try to go back and develop pure visual storytelling. Because to me, it's one of the most exciting aspects of making movies and almost a lost art at this point.

There's so much to learn about acting and performance in general... I mean, acting is a very complex art, and there are a lot more theories and methods and techniques to it than I think anybody would think.

As an artist your first loyalty is to your art. Unless this is the case, you're going to be a second-rate artist.

Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.

It does not seem that the contradiction which exists between the aristocratic function of art and the democratic structure of modern society can ever be resolved.

Every mind which has given itself to self-expression in art is aware of a directing agency outside its conscious control which it has agreed to label 'inspiration'.

I never wanted to dilute my private passion for the art by airing and arguing it in public.

There are so many reactions to art that make sense to me - but 'ick' means something.

The funny thing is musicians often love to go to see visual art because you've got all these pictures to turn into metaphors.

Nature is the most beautiful thing we have. It's better than art because it's from the creator.

Thought is a strenuous art - few practice it, and then only at rare times.

For years, I had heard about the lack of interest in literature in the U.S. and I had complained about it. I failed to understand how people could fail to be moved by art.

Every time a student walks past a really urgent, expressive piece of architecture that belongs to his college, it can help reassure him that he does have that mind, does have that soul.

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.