A Page of 52 Quotes about Art, Life and Whatever

Circle of Life .(Newman)

This summer I've been doing an inventory of my 11 years of blogging. As regular readers of this blog know, I frequently begin with a quote of some kind, perhaps because I've always enjoyed reading stories and essay that begin with a thought provoking zinger or tone-setting parcel of pith.

What follows are primarily quotes used to begin a blog post or, on a few occasions, a set of quotes that filled in for that day's blog entry. Most of these were from 2009.

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"The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time."

~Abraham Lincoln

"All television is educational television. The question is: what is it teaching?"

~Nicholas Johnson

"It’s easy to lie with statistics, and even easier to lie without them."

~Unknown

"A picture is worth a thousand words."

~Napoleon Bonaparte

"A sincere artist is not one who makes a faithful attempt to put on canvas what is in front of him, but one who tries to create something which is, in itself, a living thing."

~William Dobell

"Creativity takes courage."

~Matisse

"Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music."

~Angela Monet

"Painting has one foot in architecture and one foot in the dream." 

~Roberto Matta

Tiger by Ellen Sandbeck

"I have never produced anything good except by a long succession of slight efforts."

~Andre Gide

Man: Did Hemingway ever talk to you?

God: Everybody talks to me… sooner or later.

"Hey, do you want to make a deal?"

~-Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone

"The problem with reality is that there’s no background music, so you don’t know whether you’re experiencing a comedy, suspense or a tragedy."

~Unknown

"It is above all by imagination that we achieve perception and compassion and hope."

 ~Ursula Le Guinn

“The sole difference between me and a madman is the fact that I am not mad!”

 ~Salvador Dali

"When a white army battles Indians and wins, it is called a great victory, but if they lose it is called a massacre."

~Chiksika, Shawnee

“Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space.” ~Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

"Technology... is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other." ~C.P. Snow

“If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain.”

~Winston Churchill

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past.

~ T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton

Animalia by Shawna Gilmore

"Imagine what a harmonious world it could be if every single person, both young and old shared a little of what he is good at doing."

~Quincy Jo

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever."

~John Keats

“Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.”

~Thomas Carlyle

"Many lives remain unfulfilled because of a lack of courage in affirming one's inner convictions in spite of all obstacles."

~Paul Tournier

"If a man is worth knowing at all, he is worth knowing well."

~Alexander Smith

"The writer of any first person work must decide two obvious questions: what to put in and what to leave out."

~Annie Dillard

“Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things… I am tempted to think there are no little things.”

~Bruce Barton

Inside the Matrix

"Art... makes life possible."

~Joseph Beuys

"Golf is a good walk spoiled."
~Mark Twain

"She got her good looks from her father. He's a plastic surgeon."
~Groucho Marx

"I don't drink; I don't like it--it makes me feel good."
~Oscar Levant

"An optimist is a man who has never had much experience."
~Don Marquis

"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple."
~Oscar Wilde

"The average dog is a nicer person than the average person."
~Andy Rooney

"You can fool too many of the people too much of the time."
~James Thurber

"Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable."
~John Kenneth Galbraith

"Colors must fit together as pieces in a puzzle or cogs in a wheel."

~Hans Hofmann

"Youth is wasted on the young."

~George Bernard Shaw

"There's always a moment in childhood when a door opens and lets the future in."

~Graham Greene

"Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe."

~H.G. Wells

"Ideas are like cattle. They have to be gathered and herded if you want to keep track of them, otherwise they just wander off and get lost."

~M.L. Bennett

“I am not afraid…I was born to do this.”

~Joan of Arc

“There is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.”

~Martha Graham

"You've been given a great gift, George: A chance to see what the world would be like without you. " 

~Clarence (The angel in It's a Wonderful Life)

On Democracy: “The bludgeoning of the people, by the people, for the people.”

~Oscar Wilde

On Golf: “I regard golf as an expensive way of playing marbles.”

~G.K. Chesterton

On Love: “A temporary insanity curable by marriage.”

~Ambrose Bierce

On Mankind: “I love mankind; it’s people I can’t stand.”

~Charles Schultz

On Optimism: “An optimist is a man who has never had much experience.”

~Don Marquis

On Art: "Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable."

~George Bernard Shaw

"Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species."

~W. Somerset Maugham

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