Favorite Inspiring Art Quotes Throughout the Ages

Collecting quotes has always been a secret hobby of mine. Over the years I have found many inspiring quotes in books or on the Internet, but also in some random places like tea bags, fortune cookies and bathroom walls. (I’ve even written a few myself!)…

It might sound strange, but a single phrase from a wise person has the power to uplift my spirits and motivate or inspire me throughout the day.
As it turns out, my years of being a ‘quote junkie’ has not been in vain. Lately, I have been sharing my collection of quotes on Twitter. It seems that I am not alone in my love of quotes. In fact, the quotes I share spark a lot of conversation and inspiration in others. So, this week I decided to share some of my favorite ‘art quotes’ with you. I hope you enjoy them.
Please feel free to add and share your own quotes in the comment section. Thanks! Lori 🙂

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“Art is not a thing; it is a way.” ~Elbert Hubbard
“Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.” ~Pablo Picasso
“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” ~Leonardo da Vinci
“To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts – such is the duty of the artist.” ~Schumman
“An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.” ~Charles Horton Cooley
“Artists must be men of wit, consciously or unconsciously philosophers; read, study and think a great deal of life…” ~Robert Henri
“My paint brushes are having a bad-hair-day!” ~Lori McNee
“Art washes away from the sould the dust of everyday life.” ~Pablo Picasso
“All art requires courage.” ~Anne Tucker
“When inspiration doesn’t come, I go halfway to meet it.” ~Freud
“Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.” ~Oscar Wilde
“Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.” ~Edgar Degas
“The day is an empty canvas, the shapes and colors are yours to choose.” ~Alex Noble
“I would like to paint the way a bird sings.” ~Claude Monet
“Pictures must not be too picturesque.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” ~Albert Einstein
“An artist is like a prophet. He must lead people and help them get acquainted with what he sees.” ~George Butendorp
“Painting is a source of endless pleasure, but also of great anguish.” ~Balthus

“For over twenty years I have squeezed my professional art career between kids and loads of laundry, and magically I get painting done…but, art has to start in the head before it makes it to the canvas anyway. I do a lot of thinking first.” ~Lori McNee

“If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.” ~Michelangelo
“Anyone who says you can’t see a thought simply doesn’t know art.” ~Wynetka Ann Reynolds
“Great art picks up where nature ends.” ~Marc Chagall
“What art offers is space – a certain breathing room for the spirit.” ~John Updike
“Everything depends on the attitude of the artist toward his subject. It is essential.” ~Robert Henri
“Let your passion and talent drive your paint brushes.” ~Lori McNee
“An artist is someone who produces things that people don’t need to have but that he – for some reason – thinks it would be a good idea to give them.” ~Andy Warhol

“Artists are fiery, they do not weep!” ~Ludwig van Beethoven

“God and other artists are always a little obscure.” ~Oscar Wilde
“The only time I am truly in-the-Now is when I paint.” ~Lori McNee
“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for.” ~Georgia O’Keeffe
“Man will begin to recover the moment he takes art as seriously as physics, chemistry or money.” ~Ernst Levy
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” ~Pablo Picasso

“Creativity takes courage.” ~ Henri Matisse

“I paint myself because I am alone. I paint myself because I am the subject I know best.” ~Frida Kahlo
“I dream a lot. I do more painting when I’m not painting. It’s in the subconscious..” ~Andrew Wyeth
“Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who can’t attain it in anything.” ~Eugene Delacroix
“The world today doesn’t make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?” ~Pablo Picasso
“That stroke you are about to make on a painting is as much you as the next word you utter or the next breath you take.” ~Harley Brown
“An artist never really finishes his work; he merely abandons it.” ~Paul Valéry
“If one really loves nature, one can find beauty everywhere.” ~Vincent van Gogh
“All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.” ~Echkart Tolle
“The artist does not see things as they are, but as he is.” ~Alfred Tonnelle
“Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.” ~George Bernard Shaw
“Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.” ~John Ruskin
“I dream my paintings, and then they paint my dream.” ~Vincent Van Gogh
“Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art.” ~Leonard da Vinci