Art Activism Quotes

#1. Art is about the edges and the sharp corners and those places are not conducive to activism, which is about putting on a gloss.

Scott Thompson

#2. The enemy is not the person standing before you, sword in hand. It is the person standing next to you with a dagger concealed behind his back.

Paulo Coelho

#3. Slavery existed in the African states, and it was sometimes used by Europeans to justify their own slave trade. But, as Davidson points out, the "slaves" of Africa were more like the serfs of Europe - in other words, like most of the population of Europe.

Howard Zinn

#4. Terence McKenna says, "The culture is not your friend." I am not sure we can change this culture. But I think we can rise above it and create a new world. That's why I so deeply believe in alternative spaces. That's why I believe in the power of art and activism.

Eve Ensler

#5. What is music in America? It's this stand-in for political action in a lot of senses. We have no democracy and we have no art culture, and we've long considered politics nebbish-y and hopelessly unsexy. So a lot of what would be considered political activism is channeled into cultural work.

Ian Svenonius

#6. Let nothing and nobody break your spirit. Let the unity in the community remain intact.

Jesse Jackson

#7. I know better than to say Orlando fills this empty void I've had inside of me. He doesn't fix me, he makes me want to fix myself. Makes me realize that I can fix myself. When he's around, it's like there's nothing I can't do.

Lucy Hawkins

#8. Time is money' ... Waste it now. Pay for it later!

Benjamin Franklin

#9. There's nothing in my background that would have said I was destined to be a senior politician.

Nicola Sturgeon

#10. We are living in a moment where we have broken the equilibrium of the planet. We are not paying attention to our intuitive side. We only pay attention to our reason. We have become an urban animal

Sebastiao Salgado

#11. I admire Ai Weiwei for his art and his activism. His art is beautiful in form, and in function embodies the principles of populism and social consciousness I aspire to in my own practice.

Shepard Fairey

#12. I'm interested in Linux because of the technology, and Linux wasn't started as any kind of rebellion against the 'evil Microsoft empire.'

Linus Torvalds

#13. To be clear, I'm not opposed to apps; I just want them to be geared to my lifestyle. I don't need a virtual NASCAR racing app, but I'd certainly appreciate one that stopped my husband from plowing into the lawnmower every time he pulls into the garage.

Jen Lancaster

#14. Men=earthbound creatures, living in communities, endowed with common sense, sensus communis, a community sense; not autonomous, needing each other's company even for thinking ("freedom of the pen")=first part of the Critique of Judgment: aesthetic judgment.

Hannah

#15. Art is not advocacy and advocacy is not art.

Erica Jong

#16. I don't get it. I just don't get it. If Art is supposed to imitate Life, why do they want all the actors to be thin? There are fat people in the world. Shouldn't there be a few of us actors to represent them?

Camryn Manheim

#17. It's the devil's nectar. It's filthy and unhealthy. -Mark Helprin, Memoir from Antproof Case, referring to coffee (1995)

Eugene Wells

#18. Solving crimes is like following a spider web. Everything is connected in some way. It's just figuring out where things intersect so I can find the spider in the middle.

Lisa Kessler

#19. Art and activism can be symbiotic. They don't have to be, of course; they can also be contradictory.

Bill Ayers

#20. Art and activism seem to go together naturally, the idea being that if you're an entertainer, you can have a voice, and if you have a voice, you can make a difference. But if I were not an actress, I would still try to extend myself beyond my little micro-universe of my job, family and personal joy.

Salma Hayek

#21. The most characteristic concern of rhetoric [is] the manipulation of men's beliefs for political ends ... the basic function of rhetoric [is] the use of words by human agents to form attitudes or to induce actions in other human agents.

Kenneth Burke

#22. My activism has to do with my conscience; I cannot let certain things slide without doing something. My public speaking is part of an art form that is cultural.

Lee Maracle

#23. There are hundreds of possible causes for every effect, and a hundred possible effects for every cause.

Orson Scott Card

#24. The purpose of activism and art, or at least of mine, is to make a world in which people are producers of meaning, not consumers, and

Rebecca Solnit

#25. An angry artist tells people what (he thinks) they need to hear. A hungry artist tells people what (he thinks) they want to hear.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

#26. The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.

Elie Wiesel