Top 200 Artist Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “The function of artists is “the mythologization of the world.””

— Joseph Campbell

152. “Everything alters me, but nothing changes me.”

— Salvador Dalí

153. “I’ve got to formulate a plot or end up in jail or shot, success is my only option, failure’s not.”

— Eminem

154. “You are both a work of art and an artist at work.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

155. “We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity; more than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.”

— Charlie Chaplin

156. “I see myself forever and ever as the ridiculous man, the lonely soul, the wanderer, the restless frustrated artist, the man in love with love, always in search of the absolute, always seeking the unattainable.”

— Henry Miller

157. “Artistry is important. Skill, hard work, rewriting, editing, and careful, careful craft: All of these are necessary. These are what separate the beginners from experienced artists.”

— Sarah Kay

158. “I paint flowers so they will not die.”

— Frida Kahlo

159. “In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent.”

— Toni Morrison

160. “I don't paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality.”

— Frida Kahlo

161. “I am in no sense of the word a great artist, not even a great animator; I have always had men working for me whose skills were greater than my own. I am an idea man.”

— Walt Disney

162. “Artists are born not made. There’s nothing you can do for them.”

— Louise Bourgeois

163. “Take me, I am the drug; take me, I am hallucinogenic.”

— Salvador Dalí

164. “The object of the artist is the creation of the beautiful. What the beautiful is is another question.”

— James Joyce

165. “Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.”

— Oscar Wilde

166. “In drawing, nothing is better than the first attempt.”

— Pablo Picasso

167. “The rapists of the intellectual world become politicians; the seducers become artists.”

— Robert Anton Wilson

168. “I’m supposed to be, I am an artist. Yes, I’m lonely. But I’m married to my loneliness.”

— Lady Gaga

169. “Music is my religion.”

— Jimi Hendrix

170. “An artist must smash down the systems that domesticate the mind.”

— Jean Giraud

171. “More than machinery, we need humanity.”

— Charlie Chaplin

172. “Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time.”

— Pablo Picasso

173. “I am an artist first and a photographer second.”

— Andres Serrano

174. “I love things that age well – things that don’t date, that stand the test of time and that become living examples of the absolute best.”

— Giorgio Armani

175. “Pay attention to the cracks, because that’s where the light gets in.”

— Leonard Cohen

176. “The great leaders of business, industry and finance, and the great artists, poets, musicians and writers all became great because they developed the power of self-motivation.”

— Napoleon Hill

177. “It is not the job of artists to give the audience what the audience want. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience. They would be the artist. It is the job of artists to give the audience what they need.”

— Alan Moore

178. “You can’t be old and wise, if you were never young and crazy.”

— Chris Brown

179. “An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.”

— Langston Hughes

180. “Every time an artist dies, part of the vision of mankind passes with him.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

181. “If we could be heroes, if just for one day.”

— David Bowie

182. “There may be a great fire in our hearts, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke.”

— Vincent van Gogh

183. “We will make love an art and we will love like artists.”

— Marianne Williamson

184. “The man who never alters his opinions is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”

— William Blake

185. “Let my enemies devour each other.”

— Salvador Dalí

186. “The most exciting thing is not doing it. If you fall in love with someone and never do it, it’s much more exciting.”

— Andy Warhol

187. “If your life changes, we can change the world, too.”

— Yoko Ono

188. “Anxious, inexperienced writers obey rules. Rebellious, unschooled writers break rules. Artists master the form.”

— Robert McKee

189. “You seldom hear any young artists in country music.”

— Conway Twitty

190. “My painting carries with it the message of pain.”

— Frida Kahlo

191. “I think the key is basically just your determination. As far an artist is concerned, it’s just about your drive and your dream.”

— Chris Brown

192. “I live one day at a time, one day at a time. Yesterday’s gone and tomorrow is blind, so I live one day at a time.”

— Willie Nelson

193. “All my life I have had a choice of hate and love. I chose love and I am here.”

— A. R. Rahman

194. “The mother is the one supreme asset of national life; she is more important by far than the successful statesman, or business man, or artist, or scientist.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

195. “The miniatures of the Mughal period are really the pinnacle of Indian artistic achievement. And not a single one of those paintings is done by an individual artist.”

— Salman Rushdie

196. “You cannot have Liberty in this world without what you call Moral Virtue, and you cannot have Moral Virtue without the slavery of that half of the human race who hate what you call Moral Virtue.”

— William Blake

197. “My bottom line is that I think Ridley Scott is one of the greatest visual artists of our time and I feel very privileged that he wants to work with me, so I go with that flow.”

— Russell Crowe

198. “I’ll stand my ground and I won’t back down...”

— Tom Petty

199. “Without music, life would be a mistake.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche

200. “I don’t worry because everything’s gonna be alright.”

— Alicia Keys