Inspiring Artist Quotes

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

Pablo Picasso

Life, Motivational, Music

"LIFE", Vol. 57, nr. 11, (p. 9), September 11, 1964.

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Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.

Thomas Merton

Art, Fools Day, Finding Yourself

Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.35, Shambhala Publications

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Drawing is not what you see but what you must make others see.

Edgar Degas

Beauty, Dance, Art

"The shop-talk of Edgar Degas".

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I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Inspiring, Art, Flower

Dennis Abrams, Georgia O'Keeffe (2009). “Georgia O'Keeffe”, p.23, Infobase Publishing

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Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.

Salvador Dali

Funny, Music, Sarcastic

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An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.

Charles Horton Cooley

Art, Failure, Creative

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Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.

Pablo Picasso

Inspirational, Motivational, Leadership

"Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.

Michelangelo

Art, Pain, Inspiration

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1913). “Michelangelo: A Record of His Life as Told in His Own Letters and Papers”

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To create one's world in any of the arts takes courage.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Inspirational, Courage, Art

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The world today doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?

Pablo Picasso

Music, Art, World

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The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Inspirational, Leadership, Beautiful

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If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.

Michelangelo

Inspirational, Inspiring, Art

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An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it.

Paul Valery

Art, Abandon, Artist

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The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.

Michelangelo

Christian, Art, Shadow Work

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Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.

W. Somerset Maugham

Art, Travel, Adventure

"Cakes and Ale, or, The Skeleton in the Cupboard" by W. Somerset Maugham, (p. 310), 1930.

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The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity.

Alberto Giacometti

Inspirational, Motivational, Photography

Herbert C. Lust, Alberto Giacometti, Aprile Gallant, Portland Museum of Art (2000). “Alberto Giacometti”

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What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit.

John Updike

Teacher, Appreciation, Art

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The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.

Willa Cather

Life, Beautiful, Truth

Willa Cather (2012). “The Song of the Lark”, p.305, Courier Corporation

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Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.

Edgar Degas

Art, Experience, Painting

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In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Art, Hands, Imagine

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Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.

Steve Jobs

Love, Inspirational, Life

Commencement Address at Stanford University, delivered 12 June 2005, Palo Alto, CA

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Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.

Leonardo da Vinci

Art, Creativity, Drawing

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No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

Oscar Wilde

Art, Business, Acting

Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.755, GENERAL PRESS

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An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.

James Whistler

Tattoo, Art, Creativity

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Desire is not what you see, but what you imagine.

Paulo Coelho

Life, Art, Inspiration

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