Good Artist Quotes

• A Good artist has less time than ideas.

  Martin Kippenberger

  Art, Ideas, Artist

  45 Copy quote

• The chief enemy of creativity is 'good' sense.

  Pablo Picasso

  Life, Motivational, Beautiful

  15 Copy quote

• Every good painter paints what he is.

  Jackson Pollock

  Art, Paint, Artist

  Jackson Pollock, Bernice Rose, Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.) (1980). “Jackson Pollock, drawing into painting”, Icon

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• Bad artists copy. Good artists steal.

  Pablo Picasso

  Art, Creative, Stealing

  57 Copy quote

• To be an artist you have to give up everything, including the desire to be a good artist.

  Jasper Johns

  Inspirational, Life, Beautiful

  35 Copy quote

• Good artists copy, great artists steal.

  Pablo Picasso

  Creativity, Artist, Small Jobs

  55 Copy quote

• Picasso had a saying - 'good artists copy, great artists steal' - and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.

  Walter Isaacson

  Inspirational, Artist, Small Jobs

  Walter Isaacson (2011). “Walter Isaacson Great Innovators e-book boxed set: Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Einstein”, p.147, Simon and Schuster

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion.

  T. S. Eliot

  Unique, Feelings, Immature

  "Essays on Elizabethan Drama".

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest.

  T. S. Eliot

  Artist, Immature, Aliens

  T. S. Eliot (1998). “The Sacred Wood and Major Early Essays”, p.72, Courier Corporation

  8 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.

  Andy Warhol

  Art, Hate, Creativity

  Christopher Makos, Andy Warhol (2003). “Warhol Memoir”

  86 Copy quote

  Show source

• Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.

  T. S. Eliot

  Stealing Things, Immature, Different

  1920 The Sacred Wood,'Philip Massinger'.

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• One of the surest tests of the superiority or inferiority of a poet is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate mature poets steal bad poets deface what they take and good poets make it into something better or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique utterly different than that from which it is torn the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time or alien in language or diverse in interest.

  T. S. Eliot

  Art, Unique, Stealing Things

  68 Copy quote

• We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.

  Steve Jobs

  Ideas, Best Job, Small Jobs

  "Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires". PBS Documentary, 1996.

  66 Copy quote

  Show source

• Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

  T. S. Eliot

  Art, Writing, Reading Poetry

  The Sacred Wood "Philip Massinger" (1920)

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.

  Edgar Degas

  Art, Knowledge, Doe

  "Artists on Art: From the XIV to the XX Century". Book edited by Robert Goldwater, 1945.

  34 Copy quote

  Show source

• An artist is someone who produces things that people don't need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea to give them.

  Andy Warhol

  Art, Business, Thinking

  Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again) (1975) ch. 10

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him.

  William Faulkner

  Mistake, Believe, Writing

  "William Faulkner, The Art of Fiction No. 12". Interview with Jean Stein, www.theparisreview.org. 1956.

  88 Copy quote

  Show source

• A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving. A good artist lets his intuition lead him wherever it wants. A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is.

  Laozi

  Change, Artist, Intuition

  27 Copy quote

• There are no rules about investment. Sharks can be good. Artist's dung can be good. Oil on canvas can be good.

  Charles Saatchi

  Artist, Sharks, Oil

  Charles Saatchi (2009). “My Name is Charles Saatchi and I Am an Artoholic”, Phaidon Press

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• There must be understanding between the artist and the people. In the best ages of art that has always been the case. Genius can probably run on ahead and seek out new ways. But the good artists who follow after genius — and I count myself among these — have to restore the lost connection once more.

  Kathe Kollwitz

  Running, Art, People

  Käthe Kollwitz, Hans Kollwitz (1988). “The Diary and Letters of Kaethe Kollwitz”, p.68, Northwestern University Press

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• To be a good artist / letterer / designer / guitar player it takes practice. A lot of it. More than you can even fathom when you're starting out.

  Jessica Hische

  Creativity, Artist, Player

  19 Copy quote

• The malady of civilized man is his knowledge of death. The good artist, like the wise man, addresses himself to life and invests with his private vision the deeds and thoughts of men. The creation of a work of art, like an act of love, is our one small 'yes' at the center of a vast 'no'.

  Gore Vidal

  Wise, Art, Love Is

  Gore Vidal (2007). “Selected Essays”, Abacus Software

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• But I'm interested in the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia. I hear there are some of the worst Matisses there. I like seeing bad art by good artists. It's inspiring. I'm able to identify with them. It makes them real.

  Jemima Kirke

  Art, Real, Philadelphia

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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Every man who is any kind of artist has a great deal of female in him. I act and give of myself as a man, but I register and receive with the soul of a woman. The only really good artists are feminine. I can't admit the existence of an artist whose dominant personality is masculine.

  Peter Biskind

  Artist, Men, Giving

  Peter Biskind (2013). “My Lunches with Orson: Conversations between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles”, p.235, Macmillan

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Something in me knows where I’m going, and - well, painting is a state of being. ... Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.

  Jackson Pollock

  Artist, Discovery, Self

  12 Copy quote