Quotes about art and beauty

There is no excellent beauty, that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever

The art of life is more like the wrestler’s art than the dancer’s

All art is quite useless.

In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing.

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.

If music be the food of love, play on

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate

Good taste arises more from judgment than wit.

As our merit declines so also does our taste.

We give up more easily our interest than our taste.

Vanity makes us sin more against our taste than reason.

By means of music the very passions enjoy themselves.

Poets act shamelessly towards their experiences: they exploit them.

The vanity of others is only counter to our taste when it is counter to our vanity.

Beauty can never really understand itself.

There is a poetry without figures of speech, which is a single figure of speech.

The whole art of living consists in giving up existence in order to exist.

Absurdities presented with good taste rouse disgust and admiration.

A Spinoza in poetry becomes a Machiavelli in philosophy.

Even in the moments of highest happiness and deepest misery we need the Artist.

There is an old-time toast which is golden for its beauty. “When you ascend the hill of prosperity may you not meet a friend.”

A really well-made buttonhole is the only link between Art and Nature.

In all unimportant matters, style, not sincerity, is the essential. In all important matters, style, not sincerity, is the essential.

One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.

It is only the gods who taste of death. Apollo has passed away, but Hyacinth, whom men say he slew, lives on. Nero and Narcissus are always with us.

Only the great masters of style ever succeed in being obscure.

The head Sublime, the heart Pathos, the genitals Beauty, the hands and feet Proportion.

Exuberance is Beauty.

ABRUPT, adj. Sudden, without ceremony, like the arrival of a cannon- shot and the departure of the soldier whose interests are most affected by it. Dr. Samuel Johnson beautifully said of another author’s ideas that they were “concatenated without abruption.”

ART, n. This word has no definition. Its origin is related as follows by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape, S.J.

BAIT, n. A preparation that renders the hook more palatable. The best kind is beauty.

BELLADONNA, n. In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.

BIGAMY, n. A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the future will adjudge a punishment called trigamy.

DIPLOMACY, n. The patriotic art of lying for one’s country.

DIVINATION, n. The art of nosing out the occult. Divination is of as many kinds as there are fruit-bearing varieties of the flowering dunce and the early fool.

EGOTIST, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.

ELOQUENCE, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.

FINANCE, n. The art or science of managing revenues and resources for the best advantage of the manager. The pronunciation of this word with the i long and the accent on the first syllable is one of America’s most precious discoveries and possessions.

IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.

INCOMPATIBILITY, n. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination. Incompatibility may, however, consist of a meek-eyed matron living just around the corner. It has even been known to wear a moustache.

KISS, n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for “bliss.” It is supposed to signify, in a general way, some kind of rite or ceremony appertaining to a good understanding; but the manner of its performance is unknown to this lexicographer.

LANGUAGE, n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another’s treasure.

LAUREL, n. The laurus, a vegetable dedicated to Apollo, and formerly defoliated to wreathe the brows of victors and such poets as had influence at court. (Vide supra.)

MAGIC, n. An art of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not name them.

MUMMY, n. An ancient Egyptian, formerly in universal use among modern civilized nations as medicine, and now engaged in supplying art with an excellent pigment. He is handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals.

NOISE, n. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization.

OLD, adj. In that stage of usefulness which is not inconsistent with general inefficiency, as an old man. Discredited by lapse of time and offensive to the popular taste, as an old book.

OUT-OF-DOORS, n. That part of one’s environment upon which no government has been able to collect taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire poets.

PAINTING, n. The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.

PHOTOGRAPH, n. A picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne.

PHYSIOGNOMY, n. The art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence.

PLAGIARIZE, v. To take the thought or style of another writer whom one has never, never read.

POETRY, n. A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the Magazines.

PREHISTORIC, adj. Belonging to an early period and a museum. Antedating the art and practice of perpetuating falsehood.

PROPHECY, n. The art and practice of selling one’s credibility for future delivery.

QUIXOTIC, adj. Absurdly chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into the beauty and excellence of this incomparable adjective is unhappily denied to him who has the misfortune to know that the gentleman’s name is pronounced Ke-ho-tay.

RAZOR, n. An instrument used by the Caucasian to enhance his beauty, by the Mongolian to make a guy of himself, and by the Afro-American to affirm his worth.

REALISM, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seen by toads. The charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm.

REQUIEM, n. A mass for the dead which the minor poets assure us the winds sing o’er the graves of their favorites. Sometimes, by way of providing a varied entertainment, they sing a dirge.

RICE-WATER, n. A mystic beverage secretly used by our most popular novelists and poets to regulate the imagination and narcotize the conscience. It is said to be rich in both obtundite and lethargine, and is brewed in a midnight fog by a fat witch of the Dismal Swamp.

RIMER, n. A poet regarded with indifference or disesteem.

RUBBISH, n. Worthless matter, such as the religions, philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of the tribes infesting the regions lying due south from Boreaplas.

SARCOPHAGUS, n. Among the Greeks a coffin which being made of a certain kind of carnivorous stone, had the peculiar property of devouring the body placed in it. The sarcophagus known to modern obsequiographers is commonly a product of the carpenter’s art.

WEREWOLF, n. A wolf that was once, or is sometimes, a man. All werewolves are of evil disposition, having assumed a bestial form to gratify a beastial appetite, but some, transformed by sorcery, are as humane as is consistent with an acquired taste for human flesh.

The passions are the only advocates which always persuade. They are a natural art, the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man with passion will be more persuasive than the most eloquent without.

The attachment or indifference which philosophers have shown to life is only the style of their self love, about which we can no more dispute than of that of the palate or of the choice of colours.

Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like.

We can love nothing but what agrees with us, and we can only follow our taste or our pleasure when we prefer our friends to ourselves; nevertheless it is only by that preference that friendship can be true and perfect.

The desire which urges us to deserve praise strengthens our good qualities, and praise given to wit, valour, and beauty, tends to increase them.

The art of using moderate abilities to advantage wins praise, and often acquires more reputation than real brilliancy.

Numberless arts appear foolish whose secret motives are most wise and weighty.

We may say of conformity as distinguished from beauty, that it is a symmetry which knows no rules, and a secret harmony of features both one with each other and with the colour and appearance of the person.

The beauty of novelty is to love as the flower to the fruit; it lends a lustre which is easily lost, but which never returns.

It appears that nature has hid at the bottom of our hearts talents and abilities unknown to us. It is only the passions that have the power of bringing them to light, and sometimes give us views more true and more perfect than art could possibly do.

The pia fraus is still more repugnant to the taste (the “piety”) of the free spirit (the “pious man of knowledge”) than the impia fraus. Hence the profound lack of judgment, in comparison with the Church, characteristic of the type “free spirit”—as ITS non-freedom.

The advocates of a criminal are seldom artists enough to turn the beautiful terribleness of the deed to the advantage of the doer.

In intercourse with scholars and artists one readily makes mistakes of opposite kinds: in a remarkable scholar one not infrequently finds a mediocre man; and often, even in a mediocre artist, one finds a very remarkable man.

Our plans and designs should be so perfect in truth and beauty, that in touching them the world could only mar. We should thus have the advantage of setting right what is wrong, and restoring what is destroyed.

In art and knowledge, as also in deed and action, everything depends on a pure apprehension of the object and a treatment of it according to its nature.

By force of habit we look at a clock that has run down as if it were still going, and we gaze at the face of a beauty as though she still loved.

No one but the master can promote the cause of Art. Patrons help the master,—that is right and proper; but that does not always mean that Art is helped.

The importunity of young dilettanti must be borne with good-will; for as they grow old they become the truest worshippers of Art and the Master.

The secret places in the way of life may not and cannot be revealed: there are rocks of offence on which every traveller must stumble. But the poet points to where they are.

From this time forward, if a man does not apply himself to some art or handiwork, he will be in a bad way. In the rapid changes of the world, knowledge is no longer a furtherance; by the time a man has taken note of everything, he has lost himself.

Vanity is a desire of personal glory, the wish to be appreciated, honoured, and run after, not because of one’s personal qualities, merits, and achievements, but because of one’s individual existence. At best, therefore, it is a frivolous beauty whom it befits.

The so-called Nature-poets are men of active talent, with a fresh stimulus and reaction from an over-cultured, stagnant, mannered epoch of art. They cannot avoid commonplace.

Superstition is the poetry of life, and so it does not hurt the poet to be superstitious.

Translators are like busy match-makers: they sing the praises of some half-veiled beauty, and extol her charms, and arouse an irresistible longing for the original.

The Greeks, whose poetry and rhetoric was of a simple and positive character, express approval more often than disapproval. With the Latin writers it is the contrary; and the more poetry and the arts of speech decay, the more will blame swell and praise shrink.

In Sakontala the poet appears in his highest function. As the representative of the most natural condition of things, the finest mode of life, the purest moral endeavour, the worthiest majesty, and the most solemn worship, he ventures on common and ridiculous contrasts.

Shakespeare’s Henry IV. If everything were lost that has ever been preserved to us of this kind of writing, the arts of poetry and rhetoric could be completely restored out of this one play.

Shakespeare’s finest dramas are wanting here and there in facility: they are something more than they should be, and for that very reason indicate the great poet.

The peculiar value of so-called popular ballads is that their motives are drawn direct from nature. This, however, is an advantage of which the poet of culture could also avail himself, if he knew how to do it.

But in popular ballads there is always this advantage, that in the art of saying things shortly uneducated men are always better skilled than those who are in the strict sense of the word educated.

The Beautiful is a manifestation of secret laws of nature, which, without its presence, would never have been revealed.

It is said: Artist, study nature! But it is no trifle to develop the noble out of the commonplace, or beauty out of uniformity.

When Nature begins to reveal her open secret to a man, he feels an irresistible longing for her worthiest interpreter, Art.

For all other Arts we must make some allowance; but to Greek Art alone we are always debtors.

There is no surer way of evading the world than by Art; and no surer way of uniting with it than by Art.

The dignity of Art appears perhaps most conspicuously in Music; for in Music there is no material to be deducted. It is wholly form and intrinsic value, and it raises and ennobles all that it expresses.

It is only by Art, and especially by Poetry, that the imagination is regulated. Nothing is more frightful than imagination without taste.

Art rests upon a kind of religious sense: it is deeply and ineradicably in earnest. Thus it is that Art so willingly goes hand in hand with Religion.

A noble philosopher spoke of architecture as frozen music; and it was inevitable that many people should shake their heads over his remark. We believe that no better repetition of this fine thought can be given than by calling architecture a speechless music.

Art is essentially noble; therefore the artist has nothing to fear from a low or common subject. Nay, by taking it up, he ennobles it; and so it is that we see the greatest artists boldly exercising their sovereign rights.

In every artist there is a germ of daring, without which no talent is conceivable.

Art is a medium of what no tongue can utter; and thus it seems a piece of folly to try to convey its meaning afresh by means of words. But, by trying to do so, the understanding gains; and this, again, benefits the faculty in practice.

An artist who produces valuable work is not always able to give an account of his own or others’ performances.

We know of no world except in relation to mankind; and we wish for no Art that does not bear the mark of this relation.

Blunt naïvety, stubborn vigour, scrupulous observance of rule, and any other epithets which may apply to older German Art, are a part of every earlier and simpler artistic method. The older Venetians, Florentines, and others had it all too.

Because Albrecht Dürer, with his incomparable talent, could never rise to the idea of the symmetry of beauty, or even to the thought of a fitting conformity to the object in view, are we never to spurn the ground!

It would be interesting to show how Martin Schön stands near him, and how the merits of German Art were restricted to these two; and useful also to show that it was not evening every day.

In every kind of Art there is a degree of excellence which may be reached, so to speak, by the mere use of one’s own natural talents. But at the same time it is impossible to go beyond that point, unless Art comes to one’s aid.

To make many sketches issue at last in a complete work is something that not even the best artists always achieve.

In the sphere of true Art there is no preparatory school, but there is a way of preparation; and the best preparation is the interest of the most insignificant pupil in the work of the master. Colour-grinders have often made excellent painters.

If an artist grasps Nature aright and contrives to give its form a nobler, freer grace, no one will understand the source of his inspiration, and every one will swear that he has taken it from the antique.

Kant taught us the critique of the reason. We must have a critique of the senses if Art in general, and especially German Art, is ever to regain its tone and move forward on the path of life and happiness.

Most arts require long study and application; but the most useful art of all, that of pleasing, requires only the desire.