Art Quotes

Beauty, expression, and the human need to create. Artists and thinkers on why art matters.

21093 quotes

J
"Art is the mirror of the soul."
Jean Racine
J
"The artist reveals hidden truths."
Jean Racine
M
"Writing is like painting, except I use words instead of paint."
Molière
M
"Criticism is easy, art is difficult."
Molière
M
"Feigning is an art that must be learned."
Molière
V
"Art is the effort of man to express, not to explain."
Voltaire
S
"The world exists to be put into a book."
Stéphane Mallarmé
S
"Everything in the world exists in order to end in a book."
Stéphane Mallarmé
S
"The impressionists are painters who paint what they see."
Stéphane Mallarmé
S
"Art requires absolute dedication."
Stéphane Mallarmé
S
"Art is rebellion against the ordinary."
Stéphane Mallarmé
"Art is the best means of access to beauty."
Charles Baudelaire
"The one true art is to be immortal."
Charles Baudelaire
"Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known."
Charles Baudelaire
D
"The purpose of art is not to reproduce what we see, but to interpret and elevate it."
Denis Diderot
P
"Art is the expression of the soul made visible."
Pierre Corneille
P
"Art gives voice to what the spirit feels but cannot speak."
Pierre Corneille
M
"Writing is like painting, except the canvas is time itself."
Molière
M
"Art imitates life, and life imitates art in an endless dance."
Molière
J
"In art, we find the fingerprints of the divine on human creation."
Jean Racine
J
"Beauty without purpose is decoration; beauty with purpose is art."
Jean Racine
S
"Poetry is not written with ideas, it is written with words."
Stéphane Mallarmé
S
"Language is a system of symbols, and poetry its most refined expression."
Stéphane Mallarmé
S
"The work of art does not exist for the artist but for itself."
Stéphane Mallarmé
S
"Form and content are one in supreme poetry."
Stéphane Mallarmé
S
"Art is the pursuit of the impossible made possible."
Stéphane Mallarmé
S
"The muse demands sacrifice of the mundane."
Stéphane Mallarmé
S
"Technique without vision produces only decoration."
Stéphane Mallarmé
S
"The poet's task is to renew perception itself."
Stéphane Mallarmé
S
"The highest art conceals its effort."
Stéphane Mallarmé