Art Quotes - Page 808

If God permits virtue to be persecuted on earth, it is not for us to question his intentions. It may be that his rewards are held over for another life, for is it not true as written in Holy Scripture that the Lord chastenenth only the righteous! And after all, is not virtue it's own reward?

I moved to Holland because I wanted to see American art.

At the moment my art is situated between the pornographic tendency to reveal everything and the erotic inclination to hide what it's all about.

Focused mind power is one of the strongest forces on earth.

There is more real pleasure to be gotten out of a malicious act, where your heart is in it, than out of thirty acts of a nobler sort.

[Patriotism] ...is a word which always commemorates a robbery. There isn't a foot of land in the world which doesn't represent the ousting and re-ousting of a longline of successive "owners" who each in turn, as "patriots" with proud swelling hearts defended it against the next gang of "robbers" who came to steal it and did -- and became swelling-hearted patriots in their turn.

Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.

The Democratic Party is uniquely virulently racist and pro-slavery to a degree unseen anywhere in the English-speaking world!

Perhaps the noblest private act is the unheralded effort to ... open our hearts once they've closed, to open our souls once they've shied away.

Wakefulness is not a destination but a song the human heart keeps singing, the way birds keep singing at the first sign of light.

As a comic book artist, once you become a master, you end up a slave. In fine art you're always free... since I couldn't make it at Marvel, I made my life a carnival.

Art should be waged like war.

Germany has become the economic heart of Europe because our leaders are weak. But Germany should never forget that France is Europe's political heart. What is happening here today foreshadows what will happen in the rest of Europe in the coming years: the great return of the nation-state, which they wanted to obliterate.

I opened my veins. Unstoppably life spurts out with no remedy. Now I set out bowls and plates. Every bowl will be shallow. Every plate will be small. And overflowing their rims, into the black earth, to nourish the rushes unstoppably without cure, gushes poetry.

First of all, to do performance art, you really have to give 100 percent. I only know that I have to give 100 percent and then what happens, happens.

I realise the power of art that does not hang on the walls of galleries.

I have found that long durational art is really the key to changing consciousness. On such a deep level. Not just the performer, but the one looking at it.

Yelena, you've driven me crazy. You've caused me considerable trouble and I've contemplated ending your life twice since I've known you." Valek's warm breath in my ear sent a shiver down my spine. "But you’ve slipped under my skin, invaded my blood and seized my heart.” “That sounds more like a poison than a person,” was all I could say. His confession had both shocked and thrilled me. “Exactly,” Valek replied. “You have poisoned me.

Home is where the heart is, I thought now, gathering myself together in Betty's Luncheonette. I had no heart any more, it had been broken; or not broken, it simply wasn't there any more. It had been scooped neatly out of me like the yolk from a hard-boiled egg, leaving the rest of me bloodless and congealed and hollow. I'm heartless, I thought. Therefore I'm homeless.

What matter and opportunity [for thy activity] art thou avoiding? For what else are all these things, except exercises for the reason, when it has viewed carefully and by examination into their nature the things which happen in life? Persevere then until thou shalt have made these things thy own, as the stomach which is strengthened makes all things its own, as the blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it.

Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul.

I don't cook 'concepts.' I use my head, but I cook from the heart, I cook for flavor.

To understand a profound thought is to have, at the moment one understands it, a profound thought oneself; and this demands some effort, a genuine descent to the heart of oneself . . . Only desire and love give us the strength to make this effort. The only books that we truly absorb are those we read with real appetite, after having worked hard to get them, so great had been our need of them.

In the creative act, the artist goes from intention to realization through a chain of totally subjective reactions.

No, the thing to do is try to make a painting that will be alive in your own lifetime.