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Art Quotes

    “If your plan, your idea or your art doesn’t involve any significant hurdles in moving forward, it’s probably not worth that much. If it were easy, everyone would do it. The tactic is to seek a path where you see and understand the significant hurdles that kept others away. And then dance with them. They’re not a problem, they’re a feature.”

    Seth Godin, Blog

      “There are two very clear indications of real science and real art: the first inner sign is that a scholar or an artist works not for profit, but for sacrifice, for his calling; the second, outer sign is that his works are understandable to all people. Real science studies and makes accessible that knowledge which people at that period of history think important, and real art transfers this truth from the domain of knowledge to the domain of feelings.”

      Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 196)

        “Art has such an impact on people that many strange things can happen in their souls: mysteries become clearer; opaque things become evident; complicated things become simple; what is probable becomes necessary. A real artist always simplifies.”

        Henri Amiel, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 196)

          “I tried to give up the Way of Elegance and stop writing poems, but something always stirred my heart and mind—such is its magic.”

          Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page 185)

            “The greatest impediment to creativity is your impatience, the almost inevitable desire to hurry up the process, express something, and make a splash.”

            Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 93)

              “Make the world question whether or not there isn’t one of you but ten of you. Create. Create. Create. Create some more. If you’re young, when you’re young, sacrifice everything. Sacrifice love if you have to (because if it’s love it won’t get away). Sacrifice sleep. Sacrifice peace of mind. Sacrifice sorry looks from family members at the dinner table. Sacrifice your pride. Make ends meet through whatever means possible by day and once the light turns to darkness, follow your muse like a hound on the scent of some bloody, dying thing.”

              Cole Schafer

                “To an artist, rejection, at first, feels like death. That’s how personal the work is. And that’s why we’re afraid to do the work. Because then we have to show it. And then they might reject it. But rejection is only a death if you let it stop you from doing the work the next day.”

                Brian Koppelman, Twitter

                  “Being an artist is not for the faint of heart. It involves a lot of risk-taking, a lot of bravery, and a lot of not subscribing nor giving a fuck about what others think. We dance around uncertainties, the unknown, and the extraordinary every single day. But we live our lives based on a feeling, a vision, some voice telling us to paint it, write it, draw it, tell it, dance it, act it. We make worlds so others can see, tell stories so others can learn how to speak, dance and make music so people can learn how to hear, capture moments so people can see the unseen, paint colors and share emotions so people can learn how to express, create alternate universes so people can wake up to all the possibilities they haven’t afforded for themselves. Don’t go into the arts, they’ll say. But without creativity and art – the living are just walking half dead.”

                  Stephanie Dandan, Blog

                    “I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument while the song I came to sing remains unsung.”

                    Rabindranath Tagore, via Sunbeams (Page 148)

                      “It is hard to rage at something as nebulous as cancer. You have to steer the trajectory of your anger, ideally toward a canvas or a notebook, before it hurdles toward a human target.”

                      Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 281)

                        “Melissa painted self-portraits from bed; I wrote self-portraits from bed. Watercolors and words were the drugs we preferred for our pain. We were learning that sometimes the only way to endure suffering is to transform it into art.”

                        Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 157)

                          “It is always what is under pressure in us, especially under pressure of concealment—that explodes in poetry.”

                          Adrienne Rich, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 115)