"Every artist was first an amateur." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel. ~ Piet Mondrian
In the end, it doesn't really matter what you paint. It’s all just a routine to connect yourself finally with other people. ~ Chris Ofili
The slight that can be conveyed in a glance, in a gracious smile, in a wave of the hand, is often the ne plus ultra of art. What insult is so keen or so keenly felt, as the polite insult which it is impossible to resent? ~ Julia Kavanagh
A country that has few museums is both materially poor and spiritually poor…Museums, like theaters and libraries, are a means to freedom. ~ Sister Wendy Beckett, Sister Wendy's American Collection
Could five hundred men have painted the Sistine Chapel? ~ William Lear
With the pride of an artist, you must blow against the walls of every power that exists, the small trumpet of your defiance. ~ Norman Mailer
Art has two constant, two unending concerns: It always meditates on death and thus always creates life. All great, genuine art resembles and continues the Revelation of St John. ~ Boris Pasternak
Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. To perform this difficult office it is sometimes necessary for him to sacrifice happiness and everything that makes life worth living for the ordinary human being. ~ Carl G. Jung
Art comes to you frankly, proposing nothing but to give the highest quality to the passing hours. ~ Walter Pater
It is frequently the tragedy of the great artist, as it is of the great scientist, that he frightens the ordinary man. ~ Loren Eiseley
Art is one thing that can go on mattering once it has stopped hurting. ~ Elizabeth Bowen
An artist must forget painting when he paints. That's the only way he will do original work. ~ Pablo Picasso
You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life. ~ Joan Miró
