Great Artist Quotes - Page 6

• The truth is . . . that the great artists of the world are never puritans, and seldom ever ordinarily respectable. No virtuous man - that is, virtuous in the YMCA sense - has ever painted a picture worth looking at, or written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading, and it is highly improbable that the thing has ever been done by a virtuous woman.

  H. L. Mencken

  Art, Book, Reading

  H. L. Mencken, Marion Elizabeth Rodgers (2010). “H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series”, Hubsta Ltd

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• My deepest condolences for DJ AM, you were a great artist and will be severely missed. My thoughts and Prayers to his family and friends.

  Shanna Moakler

  Prayer, Condolences, Artist

  6 Copy quote

• While one should always study the method of a great artist, one should never imitate his manner. The manner of an artist is essentially individual, the method of an artist is absolutely universal. The first personality, which no one should copy.

  Oscar Wilde

  Artist, Personality, Firsts

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.1689, GENERAL PRESS

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The great artist and thinker are the simplifiers.

  Henri Frederic Amiel

  Artist, Simplicity, Great Art

  10 Copy quote

• The first time I sang with David Daniels... I had never performed with a countertenor before. That first time was magic, it was so beautiful. And he's such a great artist.

  Cecilia Bartoli

  Beautiful, Artist, Magic

  4 Copy quote

• If you subtracted all of the great artists who never drank, who never went to excess, you wouldn't have any more art left. What kind of poem are you gonna get out of a glass of iced tea?

  David Lee Roth

  Art, Glasses, Tea

  69 Copy quote

• A great artist is not one who merely fits into a genre but one who defines the genre.

  Vikas Swarup

  Artist, Fit, Genre

  Vikas Swarup (2008). “Slumdog Millionaire: A Novel”, p.216, Simon and Schuster

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• A great artist is never poor.

  Isak Dinesen

  Artist, Poor

  5 Copy quote

• My story is really an affirmation of my strength and my luck. To live with a great artist like Ted Hughes or Mick Jagger is a very, very destructive role for a woman trying to be herself. In fact, it can't be done.

  Marianne Faithfull

  Artist, Luck, Trying

  10 Copy quote

• A small artist is content with art; a great artist is content with nothing except everything.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Art, Contentment, Artist

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (1909). “Heretics”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I steal from every single movie ever made. I love it - if my work has anything it's that I'm taking this from this and that from that and mixing them together. If people don't like that, then tough titty, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal; they don't do homages.

  Quentin Tarantino

  Motivational, Movie, Artist

  26 Copy quote

• The great artist when he comes, uses everything that has been discovered or known about his art up to that point, being able to accept or reject in a time so short it seems that the knowledge was born with him, rather than that he takes instantly what it takes the ordinary man a lifetime to know, and then the great artist goes beyond what has been done or known and makes something of his own.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Art, Men, Use

  Ernest Hemingway (2014). “The Hemingway Collection”, p.2248, Simon and Schuster

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• A man cannot be wise enough to be a great artist without being wise enough to wish to be a philosopher.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Wise, Wisdom, Artist

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (1909). “Heretics”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• A student of James McNeill Whistler tells the great artist, 'I tend to paint what I see.' Whistler replies, 'Ah! The shock will come when you see what you paint!

  James Whistler

  Artist, Students, Paint

  8 Copy quote

• Pablo Casals is a very great artist. What I admire is the firm stand he has taken not only against the oppressors of his countrymen, but also against those opportunists who are always ready to compromise with the Devil. He perceives clearly that the world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it.

  Albert Einstein

  Taken, Artist, Evil

  Einstein's tribute to Pablo Casals on March 30, 1953. "Conversations with Casals". Book by Josep Maria Corredor, p. 11, archive.org. 1957.

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• The great artist is a formulation of the greatest intelligence: he is the recipient of sensations which are the most delicate and consequently the most invisible expressions of the brain.

  Paul Gauguin

  Artist, Expression, Brain

  Paul Gauguin (1955). “An Exhibition of Paintings, Engravings & Sculpture [by] Gauguin”

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's not curators, it's not critics, it's not the public, it's not collectors who find great artists - it's other artists.

  David Galenson

  Artist, Recognition, Curator

  14 Copy quote

• There are selections so acute that they come to define a place, with the result that we can no longer travel through that landscape without being reminded of what a great artist noticed there.

  Alain de Botton

  Artist, Greatness, Landscape

  8 Copy quote

• Time is not a great artist but weakens all he touches.

  William Hogarth

  Time, Artist, Great Art

  William Hogarth (2013). “Engravings by Hogarth”, Courier Corporation

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Great artists are products of their own time: they do not spring forth fully equipped from the head of Jove, but are formed by the circumstances acting upon them since birth. These circumstances include the ambiance created by the other, lesser artists of their own time, who have all done their part in creating the pressure that forces up an exceptional talent. Unjustly, but unavoidably, the very closeness of a great artist to his colleagues and contemporaries leads to their eclipse.

  Germaine Greer

  Spring, Artist, Creating

  Germaine Greer (2001). “The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work”, p.134, Tauris Parke Paperbacks

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• Flaubert spoke true: to succeed a great artist must have both character and fanaticism and few in this country are willing to pay the price. Our writers have either no personality and therefore no style or a false personality and therefore a bad style; they mistake prejudice for energy and accept the sensation of material well-being as a system of thought.

  Cyril Connolly

  Country, Mistake, Character

  "The Unquiet Grave". Book by Cyril Connolly, 1944.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• [Great artists] do not copy what they see, but what they desire.

  Theophile Gautier

  Art, Imagination, Desire

  8 Copy quote

• A great artist can really enter the logic of any particular mazurka and fully understand the language of Chopin's music.

  Rafal Blechacz

  Artist, Logic, Language

  4 Copy quote

• I think a great artist should be able to create any style, any form, anything from rock to pop to gospel to spiritual, just wonderful music where everybody can sing it.

  Michael Jackson

  Spiritual, Artist, Thinking

  FaceBook post by Michael Jackson from Jun 26, 2015

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• Great artists are modest almost as seldom as they are faithful to their wives.

  H. L. Mencken

  Artist, Wife, Faithful

  4 Copy quote