Quotations that Inspire Me
"Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better."
André Gide
André Gide
"Don't look for obscure formulas or mystery in my work. It is pure joy that I offer you.
Look at my sculptures until you see them. Those closest to God have seen them."
Constantin Brancusi
Constantin Brancusi
"I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have."
Leonardo Da Vinci
Leonardo Da Vinci
"Only what has been conceived in solitude, face to face with God, endures –whether one is a
believer or not."
Emil Cioran
believer or not."
Emil Cioran
"Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery and travail."
Theodore Dreiser
"Are you really sure that a floor can't also be a ceiling?"
M. C. Escher
"God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat.
He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things."
He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things."
Pablo Picasso
"Art is Man's nature. Nature is God's art."
James Bailey
“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”
Scott Adams
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
Leonardo da Vinci
“Art is never finished, only abandoned.”
Leonardo da Vinci
“Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art”
Leonardo da Vinci
“Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation ... even so does
inaction sap the vigour of the mind."
inaction sap the vigour of the mind."
Leonardo da Vinci
“While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.”
Leonardo da Vinci
“As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.”
Leonardo da Vinci
"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more
important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
Albert Einstein
important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
Albert Einstein
"Art must be an expression of love or it is nothing."
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall
"Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing."
Salvador Dali
"The artist must create a spark before he can make a fire and before art is born,
the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his own creation."
Auguste Rodin
"To the artist there is never anything ugly in nature."
Auguste Rodin
Auguste Rodin
"Man's naked form belongs to no particular moment in history; it is eternal, and can
be looked upon with joy by the people of all ages."
Auguste Rodin
be looked upon with joy by the people of all ages."
Auguste Rodin
"Patience is also a form of action."
Auguste Rodin
"Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and
there divines the spirit of which Nature herself is animated."
Auguste Rodin
"As an artist grows older, he has to fight disillusionment and learn to establish the
same relation to nature as an adult as he had when a child.
same relation to nature as an adult as he had when a child.
Charles Burchfiel
"What seems to me the highest and the most difficult achievement of Art is not to make
us laugh or cry, or to rouse our lust or our anger, but to do as nature does - that is, fill
us with wonderment.
us laugh or cry, or to rouse our lust or our anger, but to do as nature does - that is, fill
us with wonderment.
Gustave Flaubert
"If one could only reproduce nature, and always with less beauty than the original, why
paint at all?"
paint at all?"
Georgia O'Keeffe
"Nature is garrulous to the point of confusion, let the artist be truly taciturn."
Paul Klee
"I would rather teach drawing that my pupils may learn to love nature, than teach the looking
at nature that they may learn to draw."
at nature that they may learn to draw."
John Ruskin
"You must give birth to your images. They are the future waiting to be born. Fear not the
strangeness you feel. The future must enter you long before it happens. Just wait for the
birth, for the hour of the new clarity."
strangeness you feel. The future must enter you long before it happens. Just wait for the
birth, for the hour of the new clarity."
Rainer Maria Rilke