True Artists Quotes & Sayings

I see a lot of true artists ... then you see them on the cover of Maxim. That's the lowest of low to me. I would never do anything like that. — Cheyenne Kimball

For the true artist, there is no trivial thing. — Marty Rubin

The artist forges himself to the others, midway between the beauty he cannot do without and the community he cannot tear himself away from. That is why true artists scorn nothing: they are obliged to understand rather than to judge. — Albert Camus

Like the seasons of the year, like history, truth also repeats itself. But we seldom recognize it when great poets or true artists - the prophets and the priests of our day - present it to us in garments spick and span, following the fashion of the age, the slant of its fancy, the turn and temper of its mind. — Ameen Rihani

The ad business has some of the great artists, but because there are so many, its hard to determine the true gems. — Steve Stoute

Pseudo-artists think that being an artist means opposing whatever seems to be an establishment. That is not creative at all. True creativity is the ability to gain perspective wherever you may have missed it before. — Criss Jami

Warhol came from an ordinary family and he had a profound understanding about capitalism and material culture. He was probably one of the few Western artists - or artists from the United States - that could be considered a true product of his time and brought out that kind of spirit of the culture. — Ai Weiwei

It's usually a big kind of vent of frustration or anger or sadness that puts me in the right frame of mind to write. It's such a cliche to say that artists write when they're down, but it's true for me. It's a relief to get out what's eating away at my heart or my soul or my head. — Ellie Goulding

True artists unburden their envies and work toward encouraging amateurs. — Aniruddha Sastikar

There's no doubt about it - gardeners are the only true artists these days. — Joris-Karl Huysmans

In my opinion, it is not the writer's job to solve such problems as the existence of God, pessimism, etc. The job of the artist is only to record who under which circumstances said or thought what about God or pessimism. The artist must not judge his characters or their words; he must only be an impartial witness ... It is high time for writers - and especially for true artists - to admit that it is impossible to explain anything ... if an artist whom the crowd trusts admits that he understands nothing of what he sees, this fact alone will make a great contribution to the realm of thought and will mark a great step forward. — Anton Chekhov

I completely believe that - literature for me is a way of life. That's probably true of all writers or all artists. I think in the end this kind of activity absorbs one in such a way that it becomes one's way of life. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

Country music artists are staying true to their roots, keeping it country but throwing a little bit of rock flair in there which I think is a good thing. — Jason Aldean

Who is willing to be satisfied with a job that expresses all his limitations? He will accept such work only as a 'means of livelihood' while he waits to discover his 'true vocation'. The world is full of unsuccessful businessmen who still secretly believe they were meant to be artists or writers or actors in the movies. — Thomas Merton

I've had people come up to me with the strangest interpretations of what my lyrics might mean, and I'm like, "You go! I never thought of that, but that works,"...I think that true art is a universal reflection, and true artists are just messengers of that reflection or, at best, skilled presentors. — Serj Tankian

Cezanne is one of the most liberal artists I have ever seen ... he grants that everyone may be as honest and as true to nature from their convictions; he doesn't believe that everyone should see alike. — Mary Cassatt

I've heard from other artists that people are a little bit more reserved in Northern Europe, which comes across at concerts, where the audience may be quieter. So this means less hecklers, but maybe it also means that people may not be as open about how they felt. I'm not so sure this is especially true of Denmark, but it's what I've heard. — Agnes Obel

CALIGULA: I'm the only true artist Rome has known - the only one, believe me - to match his inspiration with his deeds.
CHEREA: That's only a matter of having the power.
CALIGULA: Quite true. Other artists create to compensate for their lack of power. I don't need to make a work of art; I live it. — Albert Camus

I urge younger artists to know that you don't have to be anything you don't want. You can do whatever's comfortable for you. From the music I make, to the things I do in my life, I'm true to my R&B core. I have the capability to make pop records and crossover, but that's not my aim. — Trey Songz

The only true voyage, the only bath in the Fountain of Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them sees, that each of them is; and this we do [with great artists]; with artists like these we do really fly from star to star. — Marcel Proust

Having a mood disorder is not synonymous with having artistic talent, but it is true that people in the so-called creative professions-writers, actors, artists, musicians-have a higher than normal incidence of such illnesses, and there are also a disproportionate number of alcoholics in these fields whose drinking may be an attempt to medicate the anxiety of depression. — Tracy Thompson

Music is made by individuals. Some artists will be very politically overt in their songs, some will be more subtle. You have to be true to yourself, true to your nature. — Win Butler

Reading is perpetual nourishment, never a vehicle for vanity. Intellectuals, in general, are braggarts, perhaps because they do not possess a true interior landscape. Artists are more silent; they are observers and have, naturally, a great capacity for astonishment. Artists are continual absorbers, and it is perhaps only much later that they pick and choose. — Daniel Sada

I feel as though whenever I create something, my Mr. Hyde wakes up in the middle of the night and starts thrashing it. I sometimes love it the next morning, but other times it is an abomination. — Criss Jami

Pornography won't be enough. Because it never is. Sooner or later, all niggers want to touch the real thing. All dogs want to smell and taste the true information. All artists want to make their fantasies reality. And everyone with a cock wants to use it to fall in love. — Peter Sotos

The true artists is one who insists on producing a supply, whether or not there's any demand. — Ashleigh Brilliant

True, there are photographers who are failed artists, but so are most artists. — Bill Jay

I think people all over the institution recognize that different ways of understanding are valuable. Artists may think in a different way than biologists or chemists, but you can learn something from that. It is true that the arts at MIT don't have the same amount of funding or same status as the sciences or engineering. — Alan Lightman

True brilliance has a well-known positive correlation with decency, much of the time
a fact the rest of us rely on, more than we ever know. The real world doesn't roil with as many crazed artists, psychotic generals, dyspeptic writers, maniacal statesmen, insatiable tycoons, or mad scientists as you see in dramas. — David Brin

It is the artists who make the true value of the world, though at times they may have to starve to do it. They are like earthworms, turning up the soil so things can grow, eating dirt so that the rest of us may eat green shoots. — Erica Jong

People without fine voices would never sing.
Children would never draw pictures because they weren't real artists.
Learning an instrument would be illegal unless you were a protege and knew instinctively.
You could only ever learn the one language to which you were raised.
Poor gardeners would not be permitted to try growing seeds.
Only the true athletes would be allowed to jog or play sports.
Dancing could be done only by professionals. — Rachel Heffington

The refusal to be creative is an act of self-will and is counter to our true nature. When we are open to our creativity, we are opening to God: good, orderly direction. As we pursue our creative fulfillment, all elements of our life move toward harmony. As we strengthen our creativity, we strengthen our connection to the Creator within. Artists love other artists. Our relationship to God is co-creative, artist to artist. It is God's will for us to live in creative abundance. — Julia Cameron

Artists are the best theologians. They feel things that are true before theologians can jargonize them into obscurity. — Tony Campolo

It is a sad fact that all flesh must die, but there is no reason why one's story, as well as one's soul, should be slighted after the passage. The attraction artists feel for our cemeteries is only partly aesthetic; much of it is gossip, a continual whisper intended for the delighted ear. Marble without a story is just marble. A true monument leans over and murmurs in your ear. — Andrei Codrescu

Look at his toes. He, let's be frank, has two left feet.' 'Verily,' Chamberlain Le Goff confirmed without a trace of amazement. 'There are plenty of tapestries like that in Beauclair. The master who wove them was a true master. But he drank an awful lot. As artists do. — Andrzej Sapkowski

I do not think it is any benefit for artists or fans to have all the new, wide distribution channels in the online world controlled by those who have controlled the old, narrower ones, .. This is especially true if they achieve that control by leveraging their dominance in content or conduit space in an anticompetitive way to control the new, independent music services that are attempting to enhance the consumer's experience of music. — Orrin Hatch

philosophers have noted that people who habitually deceive
finally fall for their own deceptions. This is the well-known
phenomenon that confidence artists appeal to the willingness of
their victims to deceive both themselves and others in one and
the same act: The victims are encouraged to deceive
themselves into thinking that they deceive only others while
ignoring their own greed and the immorality of the way they
choose to satisfy it. To this Russell added that the same holds
true for all self -deception: — Joseph Agassi

I think this is true for all artists. My senses are very important to me. — Sharon Olds

As artists, we must not go down to the level of the masa; we should bring them up, intellectualize our languages, create classics out of our folk arts. We can do this if we are true to our roots and strive for excellence. — F. Sionil Jose

Financial crisis is the moment of truth for real collectors and true artists. — Victor Pinchuk

Wordy! I enjoy description - I like words, and words are the tools that writers use, just like paint is the tool that artists use. I think words are fun, and I have a lot of fun using them. I know that a lot of kids think my stories start very slowly, and I expect that's true. But that's the way I like to read stories, so when I'm writing them I can do what I want! I say that to kids in schools, and they are very generous - they say, That's true. You can do what you want. It's your story. — Natalie Babbitt

What we must think about is an agriculture with a human face. We must give standing to the new pioneers, the homecomers bent on the most important work for the next century - a massive salvage operation to save the vulnerable but necessary pieces of nature and culture and to keep the good and artful examples before us. It is time for a new breed of artists to enter front and center, for the point of art, after all, is to connect. This is the homecomer I have in mind: the scientist, the accountant who converses with nature, a true artist devoted to the building of agriculture and culture to match the scenery presented to those first European eyes. — Wes Jackson

Every true artist is the salvation of every other. Only artists produce for each other a world that is fit to live in. — D.H. Lawrence

There is a desperate tendency to try to legislate artists, to try to lay down rules for their obligations to society. Just leave artists alone. If you are a true artist, you will have a very finely tuned moral mechanism. — Athol Fugard

You say great artists sell their souls for their art?"
"Maybe," she ventured.
"That's true, I suppose. If you're doing it right, anyway. I've probably sold mine. Jack's certainly sold his. And you, I imagine."
"I have not!" she said, anger showing clear in her eyes.
"Not literally," he said hastily. "But we give up being a person to be an artist, don't we? — Sam Starbuck

Artists strive to free this true and spontaneous self in their work. Creativity, meditation are ways of freeing an inner voice. — Gloria Steinem

Artists make art for themselves. Art is an honest expression. Artists who pander to their fans by trying to make music "for" their fans make empty, transparent art. The true fan does not want you to make music for them, they want you to make music for you, because that's the whole reason they fell in love with you in the first place ... — Talib Kweli

It's not true that voting doesn't make a difference. To check out is political suicide. This is especially true for our young black artists. You don't want to inadvertently end up doing someone's bidding. — Darryl Pinckney

As with any true artist, change is the only constant. — Tony MacAlpine

Richard Avedon is a true genius of photography and one of the greatest artists of our time. — Donatella Versace

It is true that one of the first acts of tyrants is to erase history, to wipe out the recorded memory of a people. With that in mind, it's important to remember that the work that we do as writers, artists and performers will form an essential part of the collective memory that future generations will draw upon. And so we owe it to those future generations to defend that memory and be honest witnesses to our times. — Rene Balcer

I'm not saying the 1970s was a golden age - I don't believe such a thing exists in art ... It would be like talking about a golden age of science. But it's true that those were slightly more ideological times, and the relevance of artists wasn't established by their CVs but by their work. — Maurizio Cattelan

It is sometimes said that the tragedy of an artist's life is that he cannot realize his ideal. But the true tragedy that dogs the steps of most artists is that they realize their ideal too absolutely. For, when the ideal is realized, it is robbed of its wonder and its mystery, and becomes simply a new starting point for an ideal that is other than itself. This is why music is the perfect type of art. Music can never reveal its ultimate secret. — Oscar Wilde

The hack is like a politician who consults the polls before he takes a position. He's a demagogue. He panders. — Steven Pressfield

The consensus seems to be this: we should be deeply Christian artists. But that doesn't mean we should be something called Christian artists or that whatever we produce should be called Christian art. We should simply focus on our craft, on making the best art we can. We should understand that people will and should resonate with our work not because it is Christian but because it is good. Above all, Christians should make good art, true art; art unafraid of exploring mystery, portraying evil, and looking for truth wherever it appears. — Brett McCracken

The discovery of useful forms is precious. Once found, they should never be abandoned for trivial reasons. It's easy to imagine today's art instructor cautioning Chopin that the Mazurka thing is getting a little repetitive, that the work is not progressing. Well, true, it may not have been progressing - but that's not the issue. Writing Mazurkas may have been useful only to Chopin - as a vehicle for getting back into the work, and as a place to begin making the next piece. For most artists, making good art depends upon making lots of art, and any device that carries the first brushstroke to the next blank canvas has tangible, practical value. Only — David Bayles

This is a great turtle, Katie." "James." Millie brings the waffles to the table. "Are you blind?" Yeah, you tell him, Millie. Some people just can't appreciate good art. Millie holds her folded napkin up proudly. "It's a frog." True artists (like Picasso or me) are always misunderstood. — Jenny B. Jones

Don't be too dismissive of children. While it's true that few children are artists, all artists are children. — Ned Rorem

There are those whose own vulgar normality is so apparent and stultifying that they strive to escape it. They affect flamboyant behavior and claim originality according to the fashionable eccentricities of their time. They claim brains or talent or indifference to mores in desperate attempts to deny their own mediocrity. These are frequently artists and performers, adventurers and wide-life devotees.
Then there are those who feel their own strangeness and are terrified by it. They struggle toward normalcy. They suffer to exactly that degree that they are unable to appear normal to others, or to convince themselves that their aberration does not exist. These are true freaks, who appear, almost always, conventional and dull. — Katherine Dunn

True artists elicit an emotional response through their work. You, Aims, are an artist." I — Kerry Lonsdale

The same sensitivity that opens artists to Being also makes them vulnerable to the dark powers of non-Being. It is no accident that many creative people
including Dante, Pascal, Goethe, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Beethoven, Rilke, Blake, and Van Gogh
struggled with depression, anxiety, and despair. They paid a heavy price to wrest their gifts from the clutches of non-Being. But this is what true artists do: they make their own frayed lives the cable for the surges of power generated in the creative force fields of Being and non-Being. (Beyond Religion, p. 124) — David N. Elkins

True artists pursue greatness in craft in order to give the Lord the best fruit of the talent He has given them, not to build themselves up. They understand that true greatness is found in the heart of the servant. — Charlie Peacock

I was blessed with suck in the form of the traditional Snow White coloring: skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as coal. In the cartoons and the storybooks, they make it look almost cute. Of course, when artists and animators design a Snow White, they essentially give their incarnation of my story a spray tan and some neutral lip liner. A true seven-oh-nine was nowhere near as marketable as those animated darlings. We're too pale, and our lips are too red, and we look like something out of a horror movie that didn't have the decency to stay on the screen. — Seanan McGuire

Artists hide their identities in the brushstrokes of their paintings, the verses in their cantos, and the sentences in their novels. The true face of an artist is never on his face and this is what he prefers. Others misunderstand this displaced melancholy with an absence of melancholy. — Bruce Crown

The life of reality is confused, disorderly, almost always without apparent purpose, where in the artist's imaginative life there is purpose. There is determination to give the tale, the song, the painting, form - to make it true and real to the theme, not to life ...
I myself remember with what a shock I heard people say that one of my own books, Winesburg, Ohio, was an exact picture of Ohio village life. The book was written in a crowded tenement district of Chicago. The hint for almost every character was taken from my fellow lodgers in a large rooming house, many of whom had never lived in a village. The confusion arises out of the fact that others besides practicing artists have imaginations. But most people are afraid to trust their imaginations and the artist is not. — Sherwood Anderson

True poets, like great artists, have scarcely any childhood, and no old age. — Sophie Swetchine

It is only too true that a lot of artists are mentally ill - it's a life which, to put it mildly, makes one an outsider. I'm all right when I completely immerse myself in work, but I'll always remain half crazy. — Vincent Van Gogh

Most true artists care about music as a pure, passionate art form, but can get caught in the trap of the business. Which, sadly, has now become more important than the artist or even the music itself. — Rosanna Arquette

There are artists, true performers that have come before me who have been a big inspiration to me. I hope I do the same for others. — Janet Jackson

This is why it is not true that culture can be, even temporarily, suspended in order to make way for a new culture. Man's unbroken testimony as to his suffering and his nobility cannot be suspended; the act of breathing cannot be suspended. There is no culture without legacy, and we cannot and must not reject anything of ours, the legacy of the West. Whatever the works of the future may be, they will bear the same secret, made up of courage and freedom, nourished by the daring of thousands of artists of all times and all nations. Yes, when modern tyranny shows us that, even when confined to his calling, the artist is a public enemy, it is right. But in this way tyranny pays its respects, through the artist, to an image of man that nothing has ever been able to crush. My conclusion will be simple. It will consist of saying, in the very midst of the sound and the fury of our history: Let us rejoice. — Albert Camus

All too often people say to artists, 'To be an artist is fine if your art can be used for evangelism.' And art has often become a tool for evangelism. But let's be precise. As such there is nothing against this. But we must be aware that art cannot be used to show the validity of Christianity; it should rather be the reverse. Christianity is true; things and actions and human endeavor only get their meaning from their relationship to God; if Christ came to make us human, the humanity and the reality of art find their foundation in him. So art should not be used to preach even if it can help. Yet there is another way that art can be or is meaningful. — H.R. Rookmaaker

All true artists in the world from all countries and all genres are influenced by Michael Jackson. There were music videos before Michael Jackson, and there were music videos after Michael Jackson. He brought such a huge change in the marketing and positioning of the music video. — Sonu Nigam

The true artist is known by what he annexes, and he annexes everything. — Oscar Wilde

A lot of artists are scared to do that, they are scared to step out on their own. What am I the super villain of western Canada is that what I am? Is Classified the clean cut, staying true to his roots, hip hop guy from the East coast that stays in his lane and he made it big staying true to what he did and didn't make corny music? Then that is what he is and I am proud of him for that. — Shane Bunting

I think at the end of the day you can do both: make money and stay true to yourself. But a lot of young people look for that fame that some of these huge artists that they see on TV have, not knowing they can do what some of these underground artist are doing which is not selling their souls for a buck. — Rahki

Diversity matters. Not only in what we look like, or what religion we practice, or in whom we love, but also in how we live our lives, including the order in which we go about things, the seasons in which we are able to create art. Those who are engaged in the arts should be the last to send any other message, because when artists endorse the traditional order of a society, it suggests that they have forgotten their own true role within it. — Robin Black

And if it be true that the loveliest tune imaginable becomes vulgar and insupportable as soon as the public begins to hum it and the hurdy-gurdies make it their own, the work of art which does not remain indifferent to the spurious artists, which is not contested by fools, and which is not satisfied with awakening the enthusiasm of the few, by this very fact becomes profaned, trite, almost repulsive to the initiate.
This promiscuity in admiration, furthermore, was one of the greatest sources of regret in his life. Incomprehensible successes had forever spoiled for him many pictures and books once cherished and dear. Approved by the mob, they began to reveal imperceptible defects to him, and he rejected them, wondering meanwhile if his perceptions were not growing blunted. — Joris-Karl Huysmans

All I tell artists is, 'Do what you love. Never let anybody talk you into changing what your musical idea is just to try to get a hit, because you're chasing your tail that way. It's not going to happen, and if you're successful, you have to do it the rest of your life. Stay true to it and do it for the sake of the art.' — Gloria Estefan

For true art there is no such thing as preparatory schooling, but there are certainly preparations; the best, however, is when the least pupil takes a share in master's work. Colour-grinders have turned into very good artists. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

What then is to be the lot of Rossetti's fame and influence? 'An amateur who failed in two arts', it is true; yet it hardly harms Rossetti or touches his standing. On the contrary, it defines both very brilliantly. The small word 'failed' is a small word and little more to artists who are forever going on until they give up over a game that must be lost. Every artist, when confronted by the immensities of art, which is life, must confess to failure. A failure is a thing very relative. — Ford Madox Ford

People will always blame the poets for society's ills. But these are the true artists. — Russell Simmons

In the inner place where true artists create there exists a pure child. — Lawren Harris

In my opinion, the true pioneers are those artists who make manifest in their works the new content, the determining characteristics of life in our time. — Mikhail Sholokhov

Its very important to me to be respected by true talented artists and great minds than by the masses who need to be told how to think. Its more important for me to do things that are spiritually rewarding because that wealth is what makes me feel alive. I do not touch projects that do not yield personal fulfillment, or put me in a field with talent that is over-measured. You wont find me where there is no Truth. And Im not one to jump on any bandwagons or join a gold rush without a purpose. Id rather create my own projects and grow my own fields. — Suzy Kassem

It can pay off, being a hack. Given the depraved state of American culture, a slick dude can make millions being a hack. But even if you succeed, you lose, because you've sold out your Muse, and your Muse is you, the best part of yourself, where your finest and only true work comes from. — Steven Pressfield

Do not take anything to heart when people measure your art. Art has no boundaries, no limitations, no form, no standards and there is no right or wrong way to manifest the language of your soul. Those who set limits and standards are not true artists and have no business being a voice in the art world. Form is burden. Form is confined art. Eliminate the form and release the burden. THAT is true art. — Suzy Kassem

The errors of God, like those of great artists, or of true lovers, bring forth so many joyful rewards, that at times it is worth wishing for them. — Paulo Coelho

Where there is a true art and genuine virtuosity the artist can paint an incomparable masterpiece without leaving even a trace of his identity. — Orhan Pamuk

Time and memory are true artists; they remould reality nearer to the heart's desire. — John Dewey

One of the marks of true genius is a quality of abundance. A rich, rollicking abundance, enough to give indigestion to ordinary people. Great artists turn it out in rolls, in swatches. They cover whole ceilings with paintings, they chip out a mountainside in stone, they write not one novel but a shelf full. It follows that some of their work is better than other. As much as a third of it may be pretty bad. Shall we say this unevenness is the mark of their humanity - of their proud mortality as well as of their immortality? — Catherine Drinker Bowen

Working with David Cronenberg or Darren Aronofsky or even Steven Soderbergh isn't really like a typical Hollywood movie. These are true artists, and have a certain amount of freedom when they work, and they're more like independent filmmakers making their way through big studios. — Vincent Cassel

As he was wont to remark, Nature has had her day; she has finally exhausted through the nauseating uniformity of her landscapes and her skies, the sedulous patience of men of refined taste. Essentially, what triteness Nature displays, like a specialist who confines himself to his own single sphere; what small-mindedness, like a shopkeeper who stocks only this one article to the exclusion of any other; what monotony she exhibits with her arrangements of mountains and seas! Page 20.
There is no doubt whatever that this eternally self-replicating old fool has now exhausted the good-natured admiration of all true artists, and the moment has come to replace her, as far as that can be achieved, with artifice. — Joris-Karl Huysmans

The invention of photography has dealt a mortal blow to the old modes of expression, in painting as well as in poetry, where automatic writing, which appeared at the end of the nineteenth century, is a true photography of thought. Since a blind instrument now assured artists of achieving the aim they had set themselves up to that time, they now aspired, not without recklessness, to break with the imitation of appearances. — Andre Breton

Don't believe Wikipedia, not everything written there is true. The Soviet Artists Union was not a communist party organization. It was a professional union, which did not protect you from the government if the government decided you were the enemy, but it did give you the possibility to work in your profession and survive. — Ilya Kabakov

In paintings, music, poetry, architecture, we feel the elusive energy that moves through us and the air and the ground all the time, that usually disperses and turns chaotic in our busy-ness and distractedness and moodiness. Artists channel it, corral it, make it visible to the rest of us. The best works of art are like semaphores of our experience, signaling what we didn't know was true but do now. — Anne Lamott

I really don't have a theme when I start a sculpture. The rock guides me to the final sculpture. I think that is true for many creative sculpture artists. — Jimmy Carl Black

Artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself. — Alan Moore

They[ Lana and Andy Wachowski]are true artists. They really are trying to say something and trying to create something original, and there aren't that many people who do that. — Daryl Hannah

Express to our world what is alive inside us not what their world says we should be ... Our true selves should never be created by others, Held in their pockets like belongings, like trinkets. We are skaters. We are artists. We are free. — Jason E. Hodges

What makes art Christian art? Is it simply Christian artists painting biblical subjects like Jeremiah? Or, by attaching a halo, does that suddenly make something Christian art? Must the artist's subject be religious to be Christian? I don't think so. There is a certain sense in which art is its own justification. If art is good art, if it is true art, if it is beautiful art, then it is bearing witness to the Author of the good, the true, and the beautiful — R.C. Sproul