Home › A › Art
Art: Quotations from Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations
One single positive weighs more, You know, than negatives a score.— PRIOR — Epistle to Fleetwood Shepherd.
Soon their crude notions with each other fought; The adverse sect denied what this had taught; And he at length the amplest triumph gain'd, Who contradicted what the last maintain'd.— PRIOR — Solomon. Bk. I. L. 717.
And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument.— Shakespeare — Henry V. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 21.
For they are yet but ear-kissing arguments.— Shakespeare — King Lear. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 9.
Leave this keen encounter of our wits, And fall somewhat into a slower method. S.— Shakespeare — Richard III. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 115.
She hath prosperous art When she will play with reason and discourse, And well she can persuade.— Shakespeare — Measure for Measure. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 189.
There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things.— Shakespeare — Henry V. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 3.
The first the Retort Courteous; the second the Quip Modest; the third the Reply Churlish; the fourth the Reproof Valiant; the fifth the Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth the Lie with Circumstance; the seventh the Lie Direct.— Shakespeare — As You Like It. Act V. Sc. 4. L. 96.
If thou continuest to take delight in idle argumentation thou mayest be qualified to combat with the sophists, but never know how to love with men.— SOCRATES
Now nature is not at variance with art, nor art with nature; they being both the servants of his providence. Art is the perfection of nature. Were the world now as it was the sixth day, there were yet a chaos. Nature hath made one world, and art another. In brief, all things are artificial; for nature is the art of God.— SIR THOMAS BROWNE — Religio Medici. Sec. 16.
It is the glory and good of Art, That Art remains the one way possible Of speaking truth, to mouths like mine at least.— ROBERT BROWNING — The Ring and the
Y- Book. The Book and the Ring. L. 842. There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing.— ISAAC DISRAELI — Literary Character. Ch. XI.
The conscious utterance of thought, by speech or action, to any end, is art.— EMERSON — Society and Solitude. Art.
The hand that rounded Peter's dome, And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, Wrought in a sad sincerity; Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew ;- The conscious stone to beauty grew.— EMERSON — The Problem. L. 19.
His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand ; His manners were gentle, complying, and bland; Still born to improve us in every part, . His pencil our faces, his manners our heart.— GOLDSMITH — Retaliation. L. 139.
The canvas glow'd beyond ev'n nature warm; The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form.— GOLDSMITH — The Traveller. L. 137.
The perfection of an art consists in the employment of a comprehensive system of laws, commensurate to every purpose within its scope, but concealed from the eye of the spectator; and in the production of effects that seem to flow forth spontaneously, as though uncontrolled by their influence, and which are equally excellent, whether regarded individually, or in reference to the proposed result.— JOHN MASON GOOD — The Book of
Nature. Series 1. Lecture IX. Lecture IX. There are two kinds of artists in this world; those that work because the spirit is in them, and they cannot be silent if they would, and those that speak from a conscientious desire to make apparent to others the beauty that has awakened their own admiration.— ANNA KATHARINE GREEN — The Sword of Damocles. Bk. I. Ch. V.
The temple of art is built of words. Painting and sculpture and music are but the blazon of its windows, borrowing all their significance from the light, and suggestive only of the temple's uses.— J. G. HOLLAND — Plain Talks on
Familiar Subjects. Art and Life. The one thing that marks the true artist is a clear perception and a firm, bold hand, in distinction from that imperfect mental vision and uncertain touch which give us the feeble pictures and the lumpy statues of the mere artisans on canvas or in stone.— O. W. HOLMES — The Professor at the Breakfast Table. Ch. IX.
It is not strength, but art, obtains the prize, And to be swift is less than to be wise. 'Tis more by art, than force of numerous strokes.— HOMER — Iliad. Bk. 23. L. 382.
Pope's trans. Piety in art-poetry in art-Puseyism in art-let us be careful how we confound them.— Mrs. JAMESON — Memoirs and Essays.
The House of Titian. We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice peg, We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yelk of an addled egg. We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart, But the devil whoops, as he whooped of old; It's clever, but is it art?— RUDYARD KIPLING — The Conundrum of
the Workshops. Art is Power.— LONGFELLOW — Hyperion. Bk. 3. Ch. V.
Art is the child of Nature; yes, Her darling child in whom we trace The features of the mother's face, Her aspect and her attitude.— LONGFELLOW — Keramos. L. 382.
Dead he is not, but departed, -for the artist never dies.— LONGFELLOW — Nuremburg. St. 13.
The counterfeit and counterpart Of Nature reproduced in art.— LONGFELLOW — Keramos. L. 380.
Art, in fact, is the effort of man to express the ideas which Nature suggests to him of a power above Nature, whether that power be within the recesses of his own being, or in the Great First Cause of which Nature, like himself, is but the effect.— BULWER LYTTON — Caxtoniana. On the
Moral Effect of Writers. Artists may produce excellent designs, but they will avail little, unless the taste of the public is sufficiently cultivated to appreciate them.— GEORGE C. MASON — Art Manufactures. Ch. XIX.
One of the first principles of decorative art is, that in all manufactures, ornament must hold a place subordinate to that of utility; and when, by its exuberance, ornament interferes with utility, it is misplaced and vulgar.— GEORGE C. MASON — Art Manufactures. Ch. XIX.
For Art is Nature made by Man To Man the interpreter of God. OWEN MEREDITH (Lord Lytton)-The Artist. St. 26. The perfection of art is to conceal art.— QUINTILIAN
Greater completion marks the progress of art, absolute completion usually its decline.— RUSKIN — The Seven Lamps of Architec- ture. Ch. IV. Pt. XXX. The Lamp
of Beauty. Seraphs share with thee Knowledge; But Art, O Man, is thine alone!— SCHILLER — The Artists. St. 2.
His art with nature's workmanship at strife, As if the dead the living should exceed. Venus and Adonis. L. 291. In framing an artist, art hath thus decreed, To make some good, but others to exceed.— Shakespeare — Pericles. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 15.
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow.— Shakespeare — King John. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 11.
It was Homer who gave laws to the artist.— FRANCIS WAYLAND — The Iliad and the
Bible. Around the mighty master came The marvels which his pencil wrought, Those miracles of power whose fame Is wide as human thought.— WHITTIER — Raphael. St. 8.
Oculi picturis tenentur, aures cantibus. The eyes are charmed by paintings, the ears by music.— CICERO — Academici. IV. 7.
Pictoribus atque poetis Quidlibet audendi semper fuit æqua potestas. Painters and poets have equal license in regard to everything.— HORACE — Ars Poetica. 9.
Nequeo monstrare et sentio tantum. I only feel, but want the power to paint.— JUVENAL — Satiræ. VII. 56.
Arte citæ veloque rates remoque moventur; Arte levis currus, arte regendus Amor. By science, sails, and oars, ships are rapidly moved; science moves the light chariot, and it establishes love.— OVID — Ars Amatoria. I. 3.
Die Kunst ist zwar nicht das Brod, aber der Wein des Lebens. Art is indeed not the bread but the wine of life.— JEAN PAUL RICHTER
Kunst ist die rechte Hand der Natur. Diese hat nur Geschöpfe, jene hat Menschen gemacht. Art is the right hand of Nature. The latter has only given us being, the former has made us men.— SCHILLER — Fiesco. II. 17.