Friedrich NietzscheSourced
Without music, life would be a mistake.
Source: Twilight of the Idols, "Maxims and Arrows" 33 (1888)
Checked quotes about art
12 quotes with a known source.
Friedrich NietzscheSourced
One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.
Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Prologue §5 (1883)
Fyodor DostoevskySourced
Beauty will save the world.
Source: The Idiot, Part 3 (1869) — Ippolit repeating Prince Myshkin, half-mockingly
Franz KafkaSourced
A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.
Source: Letter to Oskar Pollak (27 January 1904)
Jonathan SwiftSourced
Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.
Source: Thoughts on Various Subjects (1706)
Anton ChekhovAttributed
If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired.
Source: Recalled by Ilia Gurlyand (1904)
Pablo PicassoAttributed
Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.
Source: Reported in interviews; no single original source
Vincent van GoghSourced
I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.
Source: Letter to Theo (September 1888)
John KeatsSourced
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.
Source: Endymion, line 1 (1818)
John KeatsSourced
Beauty is truth, truth beauty.
Source: "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (1819)
Percy Bysshe ShelleySourced
Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.
Source: A Defence of Poetry (1821)
HippocratesSourced
Life is short, the art long.
Source: Aphorisms I.1 ("Ars longa, vita brevis" in Latin)
Famous, but not theirs
Quotes about art that are usually credited to the wrong person.
Friedrich NietzscheNot theirs
And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.
Actually: No source in Nietzsche's works; the attribution is modern.
Franz KafkaNo source found
Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
The trail: Comes from Gustav Janouch's Conversations with Kafka, a memoir scholars treat with heavy caution.
Leonardo da VinciNot theirs
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Actually: Not in Leonardo's notebooks. The line appears in the 20th century, with no link to him.
Pablo PicassoNo source found
Good artists copy, great artists steal.
The trail: Similar lines were written by T. S. Eliot (1920) and others; no reliable source ties this wording to Picasso.
Vincent van GoghNo source found
I dream my painting and I paint my dream.
The trail: Not found in his letters.