I don’t believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there’s one thing that’s dangerous for an artist, it’s precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it.
—Federico Fellini, c. 1950Quotes
Art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead.
—W.H. Auden, c. 1940Modesty is a virtue not often found among poets, for almost every one of them thinks himself the greatest in the world.
—Miguel de Cervantes, 1615Art 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, 1860Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.
—Henry David Thoreau, 1852Art lives from constraints and dies from freedom.
—Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1480Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1928All art is a revolt against man’s fate.
—André Malraux, 1951The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BCThe first mistake of art is to assume that it’s serious.
—Lester Bangs, 1971Art imitates nature as well as it can, as a pupil follows his master; thus it is a sort of grandchild of God.
—Dante, c. 1315If a king loves music, there is little wrong in the land.
—Mencius, c. 330 BCArt is making something out of nothing and selling it.
—Frank Zappa, c. 1975