Top 100 True Artist Quotes
#1. Unlearning is the choice, conscious or unconscious, of any real artist. And it is the true sign of maturity.
Madeleine L'Engle
#2. The thing you can't underestimate is the true fan's intimacy. So Lady Gaga or anybody's true fan, I don't think they're going anywhere. There are people who are into commitment. If they're connecting with an artist, I think they'll be there over the long course.
Alanis Morissette
#3. Each person may see a fight in different ways ... They can see more to a primal way. Others they can see in a pure artistic way ... For me I see the pure artistic way, the way that a true martial artist can show his art.
Roger Gracie
#4. The painter who strives to represent reality must transcend his own perception. He must ignore or override the very mechanismsin his mInd that create objects out of images(symbols) ... The artist, like the eye, must provide true images and the clues of distance to tell his magic lies.
Colin Blakemore
#5. It's very true that an artist who networks well will have better opportunities than one who doesn't network well. But great networking skills without great art won't change art history.
Mark Kostabi
#6. The workman in the true sense of the word - the artist in guns - is either extinct, or hidden in an obscure corner. There is no individuality about modern guns. One is exactly like another.
Richard Jefferies
#7. 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
#8. Don't listen to what anyone tells you about the kind of music you make. Just make it! Be yourself, make your own music, and be totally true to your art. Because it's kind of a selfish thing to be an artist.
Billy Sherwood
#9. As with any true artist, change is the only constant.
Tony MacAlpine
#10. A true artist should have no secrets. On the stage, you must be able to transmit every emotion to the spectator.
Anna Pavlova
#11. Hypnotically haunting sounds from a true artist that dares to dream.
John Lindberg
#12. A true martial artist, in my books anyways, is someone who is going to do the right thing and lead by example.
Duane Ludwig
#13. It is ridiculous to say that art has nothing to do with morality. What is true is that the artist's business is not that of the policeman.
George Bernard Shaw
#14. I wish I was as true an artist as you so that I could find a way to tell you what you've become to me. America, my love, you are sunlight falling through trees. You are laughter that breaks through sadness. You are the breeze on a too-warm day. You are clarity in the midst of confusion
Kiera Cass
#15. Don't be too dismissive of children. While it's true that few children are artists, all artists are children.
Ned Rorem
#16. The true gardener, like an artist, is never satisfied.
H.E. Bates
#17. True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.
Albert Einstein
#18. The true martial artist yields to the weak, while withstanding the strong.
Neil Young
#19. In my experience, what every true artist wants, really wants, is to be paid.
Terry Pratchett
#20. A true artist takes no notice whatever of the public. The public are to him non-existent
Oscar Wilde
#21. After being taught sets and reps and working at it for a length of time you can't paint by numbers anymore. It must come from within. Any artist has an emotional contact with their work. A true bodybuilder doesn't just build muscle he creates muscle. You can't be a robot.
Tom Platz
#22. For a true artist, difficulties become opportunities and clouds become solid present.
Alejandro Jodorowsky
#23. An artist's career doesn't happen in the cycle of one week of news. An artist's career happens in a lifetime, and if you're a true artist you're willing to die for what you believe in.
Kanye West
#24. 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
#25. But as he no longer stands on his native soil, his art can't possibly have roots. An artist creates true art for his people only as long as he lives, and suffers, among them.
Olga Grushin
#26. If heaven gives me ten more years, or an extension of even five years, I shall surely become a true artist.
Hokusai
#27. Of course Nebraska is a storehouse of literary material. Everywhere is a storehouse of literary material. If a true artist were born in a pigpen and raised in a sty, he would still find plenty of inspiration for his work. The only need is the eye to see.
Willa Cather
#28. Prior to my father's death, I was having a hard time committing to a career as an artist, but that's not because of who he was - it was because of who I am. It's true, though, that I felt I shouldn't compete with him, and that those feelings went away after he died.
Kiki Smith
#29. The more I grow as an artist, the more I think I become like my father as an artist. The more I diversify, the more I become like my father, which is true to who he was.
Ziggy Marley
#30. An artist must be pure of heart," said Gerdes, "for true art is the expression of the artist's innermost being. To create beauty, one must be beautiful" - she pressed her hands to her bosom - "in here, in your heart of hearts.
Stephen R. Lawhead
#31. 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
#32. True poets, like great artists, have scarcely any childhood, and no old age.
Sophie Swetchine
#33. I'm very happy with my lot. I like the variety I get. You don't want to spend your life repeating yourself. It's true of any kind of artist, you want to explore as wide and far as you can go, so that's what I've been trying to do.
Toni Collette
#34. The artist must scorn all judgment that is not based on an intelligent observation of character. He must beware of the literary spirit which so often causes a painting to deviate from its true path - the concrete study of nature - to lose itself all too long in intangible speculations.
Paul Cezanne
#35. I love Darius Rucker. He's a true artist, a great songwriter who can play his instrument, sing and write about his life.
Randy Houser
#36. True muses stay dreams forever unless artists connect them to exploratory work.
Robert Genn
#37. Do what only a true artist can do ... pounce upon the forgotten butterfly of revelation
Vladimir Nabokov
#39. Staying true to my vision, to the word as it comes to me, to my own aesthetic judgments, even when they disagree with the majority culture, is very important to me, and I think important for every artist. It's what we have: our voice, our intuition, the truth as we understand and know it.
Micheline Aharonian Marcom
#40. The true artist is known by what he annexes, and he annexes everything.
Oscar Wilde
#42. A true artist does not depend on radio for success. A true fan does not let radio determine what they support
Talib Kweli
#43. The sad work of a true artist speaks to us in that tone of people who have suffered, who force anyone who has suffered to drop everything and listen.
Marcel Proust
#44. I never thought, "I'm going to be an artist". When I actually began to become successful in the art world I made it a point to say, 'I am a dilettante, I am not a professional artist", which is true.
Yoko Ono
#45. Lucian Freud's career affirms that the only thing an artist can do is remain true to whatever vision, (lack of) talent, or ideas that happened to pick them in order to be made known to the world.
Jerry Saltz
#46. The man who is secure within himself has no need to prove anything with force, so he can walk away from a fight with dignity and pride. He is the true martial artist
a man so strong inside that he has no need to demonstrate his power.
Ed Parker
#47. The process in which a writer is compelled to counterfeit his true feelings is exactly the opposite of that which the man of society is compelled to counterfeit his. The artist disguises in order to reveal; the man of society disguises in order to conceal
Yukio Mishima
#48. The first album was a very successful record. It made me very visible and it's an immediate association, but I don't do that anymore. Now I'm true to myself as an artist again. I'm more vocally oriented.
Phoebe Snow
#51. The true artist can only labor con amore.
Victor Hugo
#52. Human society is the embodiment of changeless laws which the whimsicalities and circumstances of men and women involve and overwrap. The realm of literature is the realm of these accidental manners and humours
a spacious realm; and the true literary artist concerns himself mainly with them.
James Joyce
#53. What is it at which all true artists are aiming? It is life, it is reality.
John Edgar Park
#54. A true architect is not an artist but an optimistic realist. They take a diverse number of stakeholders, extract needs, concerns, and dreams, then create a beautiful yet tangible solution that is loved by the users and the community at large. We create vessels in which life happens.
Cameron Sinclair
#55. The true artist helps the world by revealing mystic truths.
Bruce Nauman
#56. I am not worthy to be on a Mariah Carey record. She's a true artist, so I just step back and watch the genius occur.
Nick Cannon
#57. I find it hard to believe that the machine would go into the creative artist's hand even were that magic hand in true place. It has been too far exploited by industrialism and science at expense to art and true religion.
Frank Lloyd Wright
#58. Any artist will tell you he's really only interested in the stuff he's doing now. He will, always. It's true, and it should be like that.
David Hockney
#59. What is the spiritual purpose of the arts? It is to learn structure. Once an artist creates a true structure, then divine love can pour into it and make it a living thing of beauty.
Harold Klemp
#60. 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
#61. Prince.. a true artist in every sense of the world.Gone way too soon.
Quincy Jones
#62. Departure from the literal aspect, rather than mechanical exactness, is the code of the true artist. However, departures are the result of studied intent rather than inability.
Edgar Alwin Payne
#63. Make no mistake about it, magick is an art form, and every true magician is an artist.
Lon Milo DuQuette
#64. There's no doubt about it - gardeners are the only true artists these days.
Joris-Karl Huysmans
#65. The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.
Ludwig Van Beethoven
#66. To cherish perfection is to commit creative suicide, and every true artist knows that a masterpiece is an accident that should be burned.
Barry Hughart
#67. An artist has an obligation to tell the truth. [ ... ] that the true horrors of human history derive not from orcs and Dark Lords, but from ourselves. We are the monsters. (And the heroes too). Each of us has within himself the capacity for great good, and great evil.
George R R Martin
#68. The true artist stands midway between what he imagines and what he does. He is the one who is 'capable of.' he could be what he describes, experience what he writes. The mere act would limit him; he would be the one who has acted.
Albert Camus
#69. True, there are photographers who are failed artists, but so are most artists.
Bill Jay
#70. Breughel is an example of an artist - I mean, this is true about artists and painters in general, but he is a specific example of an artist whose work contains more than you think it does at first glance. Whose work rewards, sustains attention and looking.
Teju Cole
#71. I know a lot of people who are not here anymore, and I wonder why I'm still here ... Not a day goes by that I don't think about Sam Cooke. His presence is so strong and so convincing to me, a true artist, a true talent, who never talked down to people.
Bobby Womack
#72. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers.
Isaac Asimov
#73. There's a point at which when I start to know a man well
this isn't true of women
I wonder whether there's something in him that's evil. Something that's pure and can't be touched. This quality of evil may be related to the quality of artistry, for an artist has the same characteristics.
Kathy Acker
#74. Now there is fame! Of all - hunger, misery, the incomprehension by the public - fame is by far the worst. It is the castigation of God by the artist. It is sad. It is true.
Pablo Picasso
#75. 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
#76. I like to believe a true fan of music or an artist has a genuine respect for what the artist does and has a distinct understanding of their actions. In that buying an album they are helping the artist to continue making music. It's hard because everyone wants something to be free.
Ben Howard
#77. It's true that there are people who live the idea of being an artist, as opposed to the idea of making art.
Daniel Alarcon
#78. It is only the unimaginative who ever invents. The true artist is known by the use he makes of what he annexes.
Oscar Wilde
#79. I am not an artist and never have been. Rather I am like a craftsman and feel very close to the mediaeval artisans who produced their work anonymously and who, along with their apprentices, had a true feeling for the physical materials they were working with.
Werner Herzog
#80. As an artist I'd choose the thing that's beautiful more than the one that's true.
Laurie Anderson
#81. True, I'd never met him. And true, he was a fictional character. But he also was what people needed him to be: a dashing hero, and articulate peacemaker, a cunning excape artist.
Jodi Picoult
#82. Mother Nature is the true artist and our job as cooks is to allow her to shine.
Marco Pierre White
#83. I know my sound, and I have to be true to who I am as an artist, even though I want be real cool, and make really cool music.
Brooke Fraser
#84. A true artist creates art because they have a passion and desire to do so.
Anne-Rae Vasquez
#85. The true use of art is, first, to cultivate the artist's own spiritual nature.
George Inness
#86. I'm the artist formally known as Beck. I have a genius wig. When I put that wig on, then the true genius emerges. I don't have enough hair to be a genius. I think you have to have hair going everywhere.
Beck
#87. Beauty is itself so unattainable that it escapes altogether; and the true artist, like the true Mystic, can never rest
Aleister Crowley
#88. For the true artist, there is no trivial thing.
Marty Rubin
#89. No man, said the Nolan, can be a lover of the true or the good unless he abhors the multitude; and the artist, though he may employ the crowd, is very careful to isolate himself.
James Joyce
#90. I could play it safe by recording songs that are familiar, but am I expanding myself as an artist by doing covers? It's a catch-22. It's called show business: The word 'business' is in it, and you've got to be a businessman. But then again, you have to be true to yourself as an artist.
Donny Osmond
#91. A true artist is driven by the never-ending desire to create.
Lee Hammond
#92. I want to prove to people who sit on a couch and don't do anything but criticize other people that, if you're a true athlete or martial artist, you're not old until you can't get up and walk around anymore.
Herschel Walker
#94. To a true artist only that face is beautiful which, quite apart from its exterior, shines with the truth within the soul.
Mahatma Gandhi
#95. I say that the true artist seer, the heavenly fool who can and does produce beauty, is mainly dazzled to death by his own scruples, the blinding shapes and colors of his own human conscience.
J.D. Salinger
#96. Creativity is not enough ... the skill of the true artist is to show the real in the light of the ideal and so transfigure it.
Roger Scruton
#97. Artists are the best theologians. They feel things that are true before theologians can jargonize them into obscurity.
Tony Campolo
#98. With the true artist, the social formula that he recommends is a matter of secondary importance; the source of his art, its animating spirit, is decisive.
Rosa Luxemburg
#99. True art is thoughtful, emotional examination of how human themes impact the overall experience of existing. The rest is kitsch.
Tiffany Madison
#100. Any magazine-cover hack can splash paint around wildly and call it a nightmare, or a witches sabbath or a portrait of the devil; but only a great painter can make such a thing really scare or ring true. That's because only a real artist knows the anatomy of the terrible, or the physiology of fear.
H.P. Lovecraft
