This list of quotes by famous artists — and two scientists — is for those who are longing to do art and need that little bit of inspiration to get us moving.
As a late blooming artist — who didn’t start painting until I was 54 — I know all about it.
I also know how much more fun life is when you say Yes! to your artsy dreams! So, don’t waste another minute. Read on and let the wise words of these artists inspire you to pick up a pen, pencil or a brush and get creating.
Yes, you can do art. And yes, you deserve it.
Quotes by famous artists about the joy of creating
- “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” — Pablo Picasso
- “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use the more you have.” — Maya Angelou
- “I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.” — Frida Kahlo
- “Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” — Leonardo da Vinci
- “The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.” — Julia Margaret Cameron
- “If a man devotes himself to art, much evil is avoided that happens otherwise if one is idle.” — Albrecht Durer
- “The artist sees what others only catch a glimpse of.” — Leonardo Da Vinci
- “The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.” — Kurt Vonnegut
- “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” — Vincent van Gogh
- “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” — Edgar Degas
- The goal of life is rapture. Art is the way we experience it. — Joseph Campbell
[ Irene interrupting. Doesnt this sound great? If you’re ready to try oil painting you’ll love my FREE Quickstart Guide to Oil Painting. Just >> Click here to download ] - “I have no interest in making a work that doesn’t elicit a feeling.” — Kara Walker
- “If I create from the heart, nearly everything works: if from the head, almost nothing.” — Marc Chagall
- “Look at life with the eyes of a child.” — Henri Matisse
- “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” — Thomas Merton.
- “Creativity takes courage.”— Henri Matisse
- If I were called upon to define briefly the word Art, I should call it the reproduction of what the senses perceive in nature, seen through the veil of the soul.” — Paul Cezanne
- “It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance, and I know of no substitute for the force and beauty of its process.” — Henry James
- “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” — Pablo Picasso
- “Learning never exhausts the mind.” — Leonardo da Vinci
- “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” — Henry David Thoreau
- “I decided to start anew — to strip away what I had been taught, to accept as true my own thinking.” — Georgia O’Keeffe
- “Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.” — Pablo Picasso
- “The only time I feel alive is when I’m painting.” — Vincent Van Gogh
- “To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts — such is the duty of the artist.” — Robert Schumann Schumann
- “The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it. — Michelangelo
- “I paint as a way of looking for myself in the world.” — Amy Sherald
- “Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.” — Stella Adler
- “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” — Edgar Degas
- “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” — Thomas Merton
- “Art is unquestionably one of the purest and highest elements in human happiness. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life.” — John Lubbock
- “Artists can do whatever they want!” — Marina Abramovic
- “Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.” — Twyla Tharp
- “Do not fear mistakes, there are none.”— Miles Davis
- “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”— George Bernard Shaw
- “Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” — Jonathan Swift
- “One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- “There’s something really cool about taking oily coloured paste and pushing it around with these hairy sticks and making something that looks like you. That’s the magic of painting.” — Kehinde Wiley
- “If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.” — Émile Zola
- “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” — Pablo Picasso
- “Singing has always seemed to me the most perfect means of expression. It is so spontaneous. And after singing, I think the violin. Since I cannot sing, I paint.” — Georgia O’Keeffe
- “One eye sees, the other feels.” — Paul Klee
- “It’s not enough to be nice in life. You’ve got to have nerve.” — Georgia O’Keeffe
- “I fight pain, anxiety, and fear every day, and the only method I have found that relieves my illness is to keep creating art. I followed the thread of art and somehow discovered a path that would allow me to live.” — Yayoi Kusama
- “The artist’s job is to be a witness to his time in history.” — Robert Rauschenberg
- “A beautiful body perishes, but a work of art dies not.” — Leonardo da Vinci
- “Every picture shows a spot with which the artist has fallen in love.” — Alfred Sisley
- “You can’t sit around and wait for somebody to say who you are. You need to write it and paint it and do it .” — Faith Ringgold
- “If you could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” — Edward Hopper
- “As soon as I entered one of these galleries, I immediately became just like a bee, so eagerly did I gather in knowledge that would be of use to me in my art, and so intoxicated with bliss was I in studying these works of the great painters.” — Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun
- “The more I paint the more I like everything.” — Jean-Michel Basquiat
2 Bonus Quotes from Scientists
- “The opposite of play is not work — it is depression.” — Dr. Stuart Brown, founder and president of the National Institute For Play. Play lights up our brain, improves our mood and connects you to the world.
- “Play is the highest form of research.” — Albert Einstein
P.S. Have I missed your fave art quote by a famous artist? Post it in the comments below.
This was so helpful, enjoyable, knowledgeable and insightful.