Inspiring Artist Quotes & Sayings

I was in Nashville and I was having just the most amazing time there, discovering who I was as an artist because that is such a music city. Everyone there is so friendly and inspiring and down to jam. — Lisa Origliasso

Find what makes you happy and go for it with all your heart. It will be hard, but I promise it will be worth it. — Charlotte Eriksson

As an artist, I identify with Sandro Botticelli. We know him as the man who painted Primavera and The Birth Of Venus. The goddesses and ancient subjects he chose represented virtues which were meant to inspire people. Then he went through a dark phase when he was listening to the sermons of Savonarola, who preached against the worldly pleasures of the Renaissance. But Botticelli's works live on, inspiring people to this day. Five hundred years after his death, he still has thousands of fans! — Mary Pope Osborne

When I practice, I am a philosopher. When I teach, I am a scientist. When I demonstrate, I am an artist. — B.K.S. Iyengar

But the artist persists because he has the will to create, and this is the magic power which can transform and transfigure and transpose and which will ultimately be transmitted to others. — Anais Nin

Art is life seen through man's inner craving for perfection and beauty
his escape from the sordid realities of life into a world of his imagining. Art accounts for at least a third of our civilization,
and it is one of the artist's principal duties to do more than merely record life or nature.
To the artist is given the privilege of pointing the way and inspiring towards a better life. — Paul Outerbridge

By encouraging the critic in themselves (the hater) they have killed the artist (the lover). — Brenda Ueland

Children are inspiring because they are open and a lot more intelligent than grown ups. They also have contagious playfulness and joy. For me as an artist the challenge of having a child is having to think ahead a lot more. Which in a way is good, since I sometimes lack self-discipline. — Olof Arnalds

The artist, the poet, the musician and the philosopher show in their gifts throughout their lives the heritage of the jinn. The words genius and jinn come from a Sanskrit word Jnana, which means knowledge. The jinns. Therefore, are the beings of knowledge; whose hunger is for knowledge, whose joy is in learning, in understanding, and whose work is in inspiring, and bring light and joy to others. In every kind of knowledge that exists, the favorite knowledge to a jinn is the knowledge of truth, in which is the fulfillment of its life's purpose. — Hazrat Inayat Khan

Being passionate about something is the most beautiful characteristic you can develop. — Charlotte Eriksson

It doesn't matter the genre or type of art, if it's authentic there's an apparent beauty to it and as an artist, that's very inspiring. — Brian McKnight

The genius is not in how much Stanley Kubrick does in "2001: A Space Odyssey,' but in how little. This is the work of an artist so sublimely confident that he doesn't include a single shot simply to keep our attention. He reduces each scene to its essence, and leaves it on screen long enough for us to contemplate it, to inhabit it in our imaginations. Alone among science-fiction movies, "2001' is not concerned with thrilling us, but with inspiring our awe. — Roger Ebert

Obviously, the duty of artists is there, but it's more an indictment of the political system that someone like Zinn views artists as the seers, idealizing them as the people responsible for inspiring change. — Thom Yorke

The message of love or beauty or hope needs to be said by a hundred thousand different voices, written by a hundred thousand different pens, at a hundred thousand different times in history, different places in the world, different sectors of society, in different genres and registers, simply to be heard by the billions of ears and hearts that lie waiting for a truth which fires their soul, answers their question, speaks to their heart. — Lucy H. Pearce

I like to work with artists from around the world. There are so many new inspiring filmmakers. I had the privilege recently to work with Ethiopian filmmaker Zeresenay Mehari and his wife on the film Difret. They are that unique balance of very thoughtful conscious filmmakers who are also brilliant, original artists. — Angelina Jolie

They say that negative things like stress, anxiety, tension, sorrow, and depression "squeeze the tube" so ideas don't flow through it. But if you get rid of that negativity, which goes away naturally when you transcend every day, these ideas are more freely flowing, and you get happy in the doing. You get fresh and inspiring ideas, and a bigger picture starts to emerge of the world and life. It's very good for the artist, businessman, fisherman, and any kind of person really. — David Lynch

Herman Melville said that artists have to take a dive and either you hit your head on a rock and you split your skull and you die ... or that blow to the head is so inspiring that you come back and do the best work that you ever did. BUT you have to take the dive and you do not know what the results will be. — Maurice Sendak

Among the many values that art can offer, the subtlest one - and, perhaps, the most inspiring - is the sight of talent, talent as such, the spectacle of human ability actualizing its best potential. In the presence of a great achievement, you feel as if you were seeing two art works: one is the object before you, the other is the artist who made himself capable of creating it. — Ayn Rand

The artist speaks with inspiring tools of creativity. Thinkers challenge with the weapons of choice. These two forces are necessary to move souls beyond limitation. — T.F. Hodge

I open up my violin case every day, and have one of the great creations. It is very inspiring. It makes you want to practice. How can you open up a case and look at a violin that was made in 1713 by one of the greatest artists in history and then say, "No, I don't feel like practicing today." — Joshua Bell

Which are you? ... competen t, inspiring, passionate, obsessed, provocative, impatient, hungry, driven, adoring, inspired, an artist, a genius, someone who cares ... ?
With all these remarkable, powerful, important options available to each of us, why do so many of us default to competent? — Seth Godin

When a young person, even a gifted one, grows up without proximate living examples of what she may aspire to become
whether lawyer, scientist, artist, or leader in any realm
her goal remains abstract. Such models as appear in books or on the news, however inspiring or revered, are ultimately too remote to be real, let alone influential. But a role model in the flesh provides more than inspiration; his or her very existence is confirmation of possibilities one may have every reason to doubt, saying, 'Yes, someone like me can do this. — Sonia Sotomayor

I've always had so much admiration for my mom. She's so inspiring as a woman and as an artist. — Jennifer Jason Leigh

I'm 45 years old. I used to be a club girl, but that's not my world anymore. That doesn't mean I can't make music that excites. I think it's inspiring to see an artist you grew up with take another crack. — Shirley Manson

My mom is a painter and an artist. She would play music, and she always had very good taste in music, fashion, and art. She was also a young single mom, so I think she had really good style; she was really free ... just really inspiring in her own way and allowed me to find the direction I wanted to take in my life. — Ruby Rose

An artist is only an artist on condition that he neglects no aspect of his dual nature. This dualism is the power of being oneself and someone else at one and the same time. — Charles Baudelaire

The artist's mission is to make the soul perceptible. Our scientific, materialist culture trains us to develop the eyes of outer perception. Visionary art encourages the development of our inner sight. To find the visionary realm, we use the intuitive inner eye: the eye of contemplation, the eye of the soul. All the inspiring ideas we have as artists originate here. — Alex Grey

I'm a musician, so for the most part I've always thought that the musicians were equally as inspiring to listen to - maybe more so, in some cases - in addition to the artists. — Vince Gill

The artist is the person who makes life more interesting or beautiful, more understandable or mysterious, or probably, in the best sense, more wonderful. — George Bellows

In climbing, sponsors typically support an athlete but provide very little direction, giving the climber free rein to follow his or her passion toward whatever is inspiring. It's a wonderful freedom, in many ways similar to that of an artist who simply lives his life and creates whatever moves him. — Alex Honnold

What hasn't she done to me? She's the most beautiful woman I've ever met in my entire life. She has a passion about other people's happiness that is simply inspiring. She rose from her own ashes and became an even better person when most would have stayed in the dark," I tell her, looking straight into her eyes. "And when she dances, sings or plays an instrument ... she's a completely out of this world artist and I can't take my eyes ... and hands off her, — Danielle-Claude Ngontang Mba

The awe-inspiring beauty of nature is nothing more than being flabbergasted by our ignorance of it. Good art produces the same effect; and the worst thing an artist can do is to follow the herd, because domesticated art is about as dynamic as a domesticated animal. — Anthony Marais

I have always been a martial artist by choice, an actor by profession, but above all, am actualising myself to be an artist of life. — Bruce Lee

I feel that this is my artistic home, and I'm very happy to be a California artist together with many others who are not from here originally but who decided to make this the center of their activities. There's something about that that I find very inspiring and satisfying. — Esa-Pekka Salonen

The shades of colours are splendid. — Lailah Gifty Akita

A creative artist works on his next composition because he was not satisfied with his previous one. — Dmitri Shostakovich