Art Quotes

"The artist must maintain the highest possible standards in his work while acknowledging the chaos around him."

"Art is the only honest testimony to human experience."

"Poetry is the only thing that matters to me."

"Passion is the fuel of art."

"The artist must be ruthlessly honest."

"Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow."

"The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life worth living."

"The poem is a small (or large) machine made of words."

"A poem should not mean but be."

"The value of the poem is its completeness in itself."

"The reward of the true poet is not in laurels but in the act itself."

"The artist is the conscience of the world."

"The poem is a machine made of words, and like all machines, it must function."

"The artist who fears failure has already surrendered to mediocrity."

"Substance is better than content, and content is better than form."

"The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain human."

"Art is humanity's best defense against absurdity."

"The most divine beauty must inevitably be expressed in art."

"Art is the language of the soul."

"Art without truth is mere decoration."

"Style is not something applied. It is not a surface."

"Ecstasy affords the occasion and expediency determines the form."

"The photograph is not quite a work of art."

"Artifice must serve truth."

"The visible world must inform the invisible world of meaning."

"Art must contain a truth we cannot otherwise know."

"The eye's plain version is a thing apart from the composer's legendary past."

"Art lies in reconciling our inner world with outer reality."

"The artist shapes the formless matter of experience into meaning."

"To understand art is to understand the artist's vision of the world."