Artists
Quotes on Artists
There is only one difference between a madman and me, I am not mad.
Salvador Da (1904-1989) Spanish painter
Before I was shot I always thought that I was more half there than all-there.
Andy Warhol (1930?-1987) American artist
What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.
Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) French writer, film director
Every artist writes his own autobiography.
Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) British psychologist
The artist, like the God of creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.
James Joyce (1882-1941) Irish novelist
Artists do not prove things. They do not need to. They know them.
Kneller, In Good King Charles’s Golden Days George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
Anglo-Irish playwright, critic An artist must know how to convince others of the truth of his lies.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) Spanish artist
The true function of art is to criticize, embellish and edit nature . . . The artist is a sort of impassioned proof-reader, blue-pencilling the bad spelling of God.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American journalist
Good painters imitate nature, but bad ones spew it up.
Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) Spanish novelist, dramatist, poet
The soul, too, has her virginity and must bleed a little before bearing fruit.
George Santayana (1863-1952) American philosopher, poet
The artistic temperament is a disease that affects amateurs . .. Artists of a large and wholesome vitality get rid of their art easily, as they breathe easily or perspire easily. But in artists of less force, the thing becomes a pressure, and produces a definite pain, which is called the artistic temperament.
G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)British author
Many excellent cooks are spoilt by going into the arts.
Paul Gauguin (1838-1903) French artist
Art is a jealous mistress, and if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture or philosophy, he makes a bad husband and an ill provider.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, poet, philosopher
A woman is fascinated not by art, but by the noise made by those who are in the art field.
Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) Russian writer, physician
I should hardly think it is sensible to suffer the pains of creation just for money or the mild pleasures of praise.
William Bolitho (1890-1930) British author
The notion of making money by popular work, and then retiring to do good work on the proceeds, is the most familiar of all the devil’s traps for artists.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) Anglo-American essayist
The artist who always paints the same scene pleases the public for the sole reason that it recognises him with ease and thinks itself a connoisseur.
Alfred Stevens (1818-1875) British artist
Artists, as a rule, do not live in the purple; they live mainly in the red.
Mr. Justice (later Lord) Pearce (1901-1985)British judge
It is very good advice to believe only what an artist does, rather than what he says about his work.
David Hockney (b. 1937) British painter
His work was that curious mixture of bad painting and good intentions that always entitles a man to be called a representative British artist
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Anglo-Irish author
Great artists have no country.
Alfred de Musset (1810-1857) French poet, novelist, playwright
