100+ Best Quotes from Artists – Inspiring Creativity & Artistic Wisdom

“Creativity takes courage.” – Henri Matisse

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” – Albert Einstein

“The world always seems brighter when you've just made something that wasn't there before.” – Neil Gaiman

“To be creative means to be in love with life.” – Julia Cameron

“Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.” – Twyla Tharp

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” – Albert Einstein

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” – Maya Angelou

“The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.” – Émile Zola

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” – Pablo Picasso

“Doodle upon doodle until an idea appears.” – Lynda Barry

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” – Thomas Merton

“The creative adult is the child who survived.” – Ursula K. Le Guin

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.” – Steve Jobs

“I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson

“Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.” – Oprah Winfrey

“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.” – Pablo Picasso

“If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” – Vincent van Gogh

“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” – Cesar A. Cruz

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” – Lao Tzu

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that.” – Howard Thurman

“I paint because I need to.” – Georgia O’Keeffe

“Create from the heart, not for profit.” – Amy Poehler

“Purpose is not something you find — it’s something you build.” – Simon Sinek

“Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.” – Frank Zappa

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill

“Every failure brings with it the seed of an equivalent advantage.” – Napoleon Hill

“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” – Rumi

“Mistakes are proof that you are trying.” – Marie Forleo

“It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” – Bill Gates

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford

“A man is not finished when he’s defeated. He’s finished when he quits.” – Richard Nixon

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan

“Resilience is knowing you can endure.” – Mary Anne Radmacher

“Out of difficulties grow miracles.” – Jean de La Bruyère

“Fall seven times, stand up eight.” – Japanese Proverb

“Love is the missing piece that gives our lives meaning.” – Leo Buscaglia

“Art is the only way to run away and stay put at the same time.” – Twyla Tharp

“I express everything through my art — joy, pain, sorrow.” – Frida Kahlo

“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” – Pablo Picasso

“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” – Ansel Adams

“Emotion is the root of form, of content, of every meaningful aspect of art.” – Robert Motherwell

“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way.” – Georgia O’Keeffe

“The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech.” – Vincent van Gogh

“Art is the only way to express the inexpressible.” – John Lennon

“Painting is the silence of thought and the music of sight.” – Orhan Pamuk

“I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say ‘he feels deeply, he feels tenderly.’” – Vincent van Gogh

“We cry out in pain and joy through our art.” – Ai Weiwei

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I am my own muse, the subject I know best.” – Frida Kahlo

“Art is the only way to express the true self.” – Yayoi Kusama

“I don’t paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality.” – Frida Kahlo

“Style is a way to say who you are without having to speak.” – Rachel Zoe

“You have to be unique, and different, and shine in your own way.” – Lady Gaga

“The self-portrait is the most honest genre in art.” – Chuck Close

“I express myself through my art — it’s my voice.” – Banksy

“Identity is not about fitting in; it’s about standing out.” – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“Art is the signature of civilizations.” – Beverly Sills

“I’m not trying to fit into any box. I’m creating my own.” – Rihanna

“In a dark time, the eye begins to see.” – Theodore Roethke

“Beauty is everywhere. You only have to look to see it.” – Bob Ross

“There is no must in art because art is free.” – Wassily Kandinsky

“What is essential is invisible to the eye.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“Art disturbs, science reassures.” – Georges Braque

“To me, art is an adventure into an unknown world, which can be explored only by those willing to try.” – Mark Rothko

“The artist sees what others merely look at.” – Oscar Wilde

“Everything you can imagine is real.” – Pablo Picasso

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” – Edgar Degas

“Perception is more important than reality.” – Mike Tyson

“The world is but a canvas to our imagination.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Seeing is not enough; you have to feel it.” – Paul Cézanne

“Art enables us to find the beauty in broken things.” – Leonard Cohen

“Solitude is the soil in which genius is planted.” – A.C. Benson

“I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.” – Henry David Thoreau

“The best thinking has been done in solitude.” – Thomas Edison

“In order to be open to creativity, one must have chaos.” – Octavio Paz

“My alone time is my sacred time.” – Beyoncé

“The quieter you become, the more you can hear.” – Ram Dass

“Solitude is where I place my chaos to rest and awaken my inner peace.” – Nikki Rowe

“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” – E.L. Doctorow

“Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.” – Francis Bacon

“In silence, we find our truest voice.” – Unknown

“Loneliness is creativity’s best friend.” – Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Alone time is when I distance myself from the voices of the world so I can hear my own.” – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“Art is rebellion.” – Anonymous

“The urge to destroy is also a creative urge.” – Pablo Picasso

“Liberty is the breath of life to nations.” – George Bernard Shaw

“I rebel; therefore I exist.” – Albert Camus

“No masterpiece was ever created by a lazy artist.” – Craig Covey

“Revolution is not a one-time event.” – Audre Lorde

“Art should shock, provoke, and inspire.” – Marina Abramović

“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.” – George Orwell

“I make art to change minds.” – Shepard Fairey

“If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.” – Anonymous

“Creativity is the power to challenge the status quo.” – Seth Godin

“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Time is the school in which we learn, time is the fire in which we burn.” – Delmore Schwartz

“Legacy is not leaving something for people. It’s leaving something in people.” – Peter Drucker

“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” – Vincent van Gogh

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” – Alan Watts

“Do not wait; the time will never be ‘just right.’ Start where you stand.” – Napoleon Hill

“We are the authors of our own stories.” – Unknown

“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.” – John Lennon

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

“What we do may be small, but it may ripple out far beyond our imagining.” – Desmond Tutu

“Leave a legacy that says, ‘This person made life better for others.’” – Roy T. Bennett

“Art endures long after the artist is gone.” – Unknown

“Your legacy is every life you’ve touched.” – Unknown

“Dream big, because dreams have the power to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought.” – Buddha

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” – C.S. Lewis

“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.” – Emily Dickinson

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” – Norman Vincent Peale

“If you can dream it, you can do it.” – Walt Disney

“Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you.” – Marsha Norman

“Chase the vision, not the money; the money will end up following you.” – Tony Hsieh

“Dreams don’t work unless you do.” – John C. Maxwell

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.” – Langston Hughes