99 ARTIST QUOTES
- “I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart.”Vincent van Gogh
- “Creativity takes courage.”Henri Matisse
- “If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.”Edward Hopper
- “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”Andy Warhol
- “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” Pablo Picasso
- “Great art picks up where nature ends.” Marc Chagall
- “The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel.” Piet Mondrian
- “Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.” Salvador Dali
- “The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.” Francis Bacon
- “To create one’s own world takes courage.” Georgia O’Keeffe
- “The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity.”Alberto Giacometti
- “The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live.” Auguste Rodin
- “It is important to express oneself...provided the feelings are real and are taken from you own experience.” Berthe Morisot
- “To be an artist is to believe in life.” Henry Moore
- “Every good painter paints what he is.” Jackson Pollock
- “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” Edgar Degas
- “ In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.” Georgia O’Keeffe
- “What moves men of genius, or rather what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.” Eugene Delacroix
- “Art must be an expression of love or it is nothing.” Marc Chagall
- “Don't be an art critic, but paint, there lies salvation.”Paul Cezanne
- “Life obliges me to do something, so I paint.” Rene Magritte
- “If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.” Marc Chagall
- “I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way--things I had no words for.” Georgia O'Keeffe
- “The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.” Pablo Picasso
- “A Good artist has less time than ideas.” Martin Kippenberger
- “Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” Andy Warhol
- “I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality.” Frida Kahlo
- “I paint for myself. I don't know how to do anything else, anyway. Also I have to earn my living, and occupy myself.” Francis Bacon
- “A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.” Paul Cezanne
- “Have no fear of perfection, you'll never reach it.” Salvador Dali
- “The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real.” Lucian Freud
- “There is no must in art because art is free.” Wassily Kandinsky
- “Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.” Leonardo da Vinci
- “If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.”Michelangelo
- “Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.” Claude Monet
- “Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye.. it also includes the inner pictures of the soul.” Edvard Munch
- “Painting is a means of self-enlightenment.” John Olsen
- “I don't say everything, but I paint everything.” Pablo Picasso
- “The only time I feel alive is when I'm painting.” Vincent Van Gogh
- “The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it.” Banksy
- “Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.” Twyla Tharp
- “An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.” Charles Horton Cooley
- “There's no retirement for an artist, it's your way of living so there's no end to it.” Henry Moore
- “One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.” Leonardo da Vinci
- “An artist never really finishes his work; he merely abandons it.” Paul Valéry
- “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” Aristotle
- “No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.”Oscar Wilde
- “Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.” Pablo Picasso
- “Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.” Stella Adler
- “To send light into the darkness of men's hearts - such is the duty of the artist.” Schumann
- “I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say 'he feels deeply, he feels tenderly.'”Vincent Van Gogh
- “Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” Leonardo da Vinci
- “Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.” Pablo Picasso
- “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free” Michelangelo
- “For me, painting is a way to forget life. It is a cry in the night, a strangled laugh.” Georges Rouault
- “Art is the stored honey of the human soul.” Theodore Dreiser
- “An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.” James McNeill Whistler
- “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” Vincent Van Gogh
- “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” Scott Adams
- “Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.” Edgar Degas
- “Inspiration does exist but it must find you working.” Pablo Picasso
- “The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech.” Vincent Van Gogh
- “The artist's world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep.” Paul Strand
- “It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.” Henry David Thoreau
- “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.” Dr Suess
- “There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, thanks to their art and intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.” Pablo Picasso
- “It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures.”Vincent Van Gogh
- “If a man devotes himself to art, much evil is avoided that happens otherwise if one is idle.” Albrecht Durer
- “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” Pablo Picasso
- “I wish they would only take me as I am.” Vincent Van Gogh
- “Painting is the grandchild of nature. It is related to God.”Rembrandt
- “Art is never finished, only abandoned” Leonardo Da Vinci
- “To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.”Kurt Vonnegut
- “It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academicism. There is no such thing as good painting about nothing.” Mark Rothko
- "Art, Undeniably, is conductive to happiness." unknown
- “Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy.” Vincent Van Gogh
- “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” Pablo Picasso
- “Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it.” Andy Warhol
- “The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.” Robert Hughes
- "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
- “I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.” Vincent Van Gogh
- "The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless." Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- "A painting is never finished - it simply stops in interesting places."Paul Gardner
- “A great artist is always before his time or behind it.” George Moore
- "As practice makes perfect, I cannot but make progress; each drawing one makes, each study one paints, is a step forward."Vincent van Gogh
- “Do not fear mistakes - there are none.” Miles David
- “A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.” Michelangelo
- “In our time there are many artists who do something because it is new; they see their value and their justification in this newness. They are deceiving themselves; novelty is seldom the essential. This has to do with one thing only; making a subject better from its intrinsic nature.” Henri de Toulouse Lautrec
- “You come to nature with all her theories, and she knocks them all flat.” Pierre Auguste Renoir
- “The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech.” Vincent Van Gogh
- "If I were called upon to define briefly the word Art, I should call it the reproduction of what the senses preceive in nature, seen through the veil of the soul." Paul Cezanne
- "If you always do what you always did - you'll always get what you always got." Unknown
- “Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.” - John W. Gardner
- “The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.” -Robert Henri
- “Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.” -Andre Gide
- “I invent nothing, I rediscover.” Auguste Rodin
- “I would rather die of passion than of boredom.” Vincent van Gogh
- “Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” Henry Ward Beecher
50 PHOTOGRAPHER QUOTES
Alfred Eisenstaedt 1898 – 1995
Eisenstaedt was a German photojournalist most famous for his much celebrated photograph of V-J Day in Times Square, New York.
1. “It is more important to click with people than to click the shutter.”
Alfred Stieglitz 1864 – 1946
Stieglitz was an American photographer internationally recognised as being a pioneer of modern photography.
2. “In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality.”
3. “Wherever there is light, one can photograph.”
Anne Geddes 1956
Geddes is known for her distinctive, stylised photographs of babies, which often incorporate floral imagery.
4. “The best images are the ones that retain their strength and impact over the years, regardless of the number of times they are viewed.”
5. “I think that emotional content is an image’s most important element, regardless of the photographic technique. Much of the work I see these days lacks the emotional impact to draw a reaction from viewers, or remain in their hearts.”
Annie Leibovitz 1949
Leibovitz is an American portrait photographer who made a name for herself in her ten-year role as chief photographer for Rolling Stone magazine.
6. “The camera makes you forget you’re there. It’s not like you are hiding but you forget, you are just looking so much.”
Ansel Adams 1902 – 1984
Adams is a photographer who needs no introduction! He is widely recognized as being one of the greatest landscape photographers, and greatest photographers, ever known.
7. “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.”
8. “Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.”
9. “There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.”
10. “A good photograph is knowing where to stand.”
August Sander 1876 – 1964
Sander – a German portrait and documentary photographer – has been described as ‘the most important German photographer of the twentieth century.’
11. “In photography there are no shadows that cannot be illuminated.”
Berenice Abbott 1898 – 1991
American photographer Abbott, had a career spanning more than 60 years. Her black and white images of New York provide an extensive record of the city’s architecture.
12. “Photography helps people to see.”
13. “Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past.”
Burk Uzzle 1938
Uzzle is an American documentary photographer. He still holds the title of the youngest photographer ever to be hired by Life Magazine.
14. “Photography is a love affair with life.”
Charlie Waite 1949
Waite is an award-winning English landscape photographer. His images have a painterly impression in their use of light and shade.
15. “A landscape image cuts across all political and national boundaries, it transcends the constraints of language and culture.”
David DuChemin
DuChemin is a humanitarian, nature, and adventure photographer. His work takes him to far-flung locations across the globe.
16. “Photographing a culture in the here and now often means photographing the intersection of the present with the past.”
Diane Arbus 1923 – 1971
Arbus was a documentary photographer famed for her images of marginalised peoples, particularly circus performers.
17. “A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.”
Don McCullin 1935
McCullin is a documentary photographer known for his war images, and images of urban and impoverished lifestyles.
18. “Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.”
Dorothea Lange 1895 – 1965
Lange was a photojournalist made famous by her photographs taken during the Depression-era in the United States.
19. “Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.”
20. “One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you’d be stricken blind.”
21. “A camera is a tool for learning how to see without a camera.”
22. “To know ahead of time what you’re looking for means you’re then only photographing your own preconceptions, which is very limiting, and often false.”
Edward Steichen 1879 – 1973
Steichen is known for producing the first fashion photographs ever published. The images of gowns were taken for Art et Décoration magazine in 1911.
23. “A portrait is not made in the camera but on either side of it.”
Edward Weston 1886 – 1958
Weston is famed as being one of the most influential American photographers of the twentieth century. He focused mainly on photographing landscape and lifestyle in the west of the US.
24. “To consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk.”
Ellen Von Unwerth 1954
Unwerth is known for her distinctively erotic style of fashion photography. She has shot for a number of high-profile fashion magazines, such as Vogue.
25. “I like to photograph anyone before they know what their best angles are.”
Elliott Erwitt 1928
Erwitt is a master of capturing ‘The Decisive Moment’; his street photography is known for it’s heart-warming charm.
26. “To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”
27. “It’s about reacting to what you see, hopefully without preconception. You can find pictures anywhere. It’s simply a matter of noticing things and organising them. You just have to care about what’s around you and have a concern with humanity and the human comedy.”
28. “The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don’t have to explain things with words.”
Ernst Haas 1921 – 1986
Photojournalist Haas was one of the first photographers to use colour in his work. His impressive career included becoming President of Magnum Photos, and publishing one of the most successful photography books ever.
29. “I am not interested in shooting new things – I am interested to see things new.”
30. “There is only you and your camera. The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are.”
Eve Arnold 1912 – 2012
Arnold was an award-winning photojournalist and member of Magnum Photos and published twelve photographic books in total.
31. “If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given. It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.”
Helmut Newton 1920 – 2004
Newton’s sexually charged fashion photography remains influential to this day.
32. “My job as a portrait photographer is to seduce, amuse and entertain.”
Henri Cartier-Bresson 1908 – 2004
Cartier-Bresson is widely regarded as one of the greatest photographers of all time. He is known as the father of photojournalism, and coined the term ‘The Decisive Moment’.
33. “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”
34. “The photograph itself doesn’t interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality.”
35. “To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition in a fraction of a second of the significance of an event.”
36. “To photograph is to hold one’s breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It’s at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.”
Imogen Cunningham 1883 – 1976
Cunningham’s work was particularly forward-thinking and experimental for its time. Her extensive work included shots of flowers, portraits and nudes.
37. “Which of my photographs is my favourite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow.”
Joe McNally 1952
McNally is an internationally acclaimed photographer known for his work with National Geographic Society, and for his collection of photographs showing Ground Zero in New York in the wake of 9/11.
38. “Don’t pack up your camera until you’ve left the location.”
Man Ray 1890 – 1976
Ray was a fashion and portrait photographer who was active in the Surrealist art movement. He’s best known for his avant-garde photography.
39. “Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask ‘how’, while others of a more curious nature will ask ‘why’. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.”
Martin Parr 1952
Parr’s documentary photography captures the humour of every day British life. He is aptly described as a ‘chronicler of our age’.
40. “With photography, I like to create a fiction out of reality. I try and do this by taking society’s natural prejudice and giving this a twist.”
Paul Caponigro 1932
Caponigro is known as one of American’s leading landscape photographers, although he also photographs still life.
41. “It’s one thing to make a picture of what a person looks like, it’s another thing to make a portrait of who they are.”
Philip Jones Griffiths 1936 – 2008
Jones Griffiths was a Welsh photojournalist. He is famed for his coverage of the Vietnam war.
42. “… we are there with our cameras to record reality. Once we start modifying that which exists, we are robbing photography of its most valuable attribute.”
Rankin 1966
Rankin is an English portrait and fashion photographer whose work has been widely shown in popular media.
43. “There’s a time when people say your work is revolutionary, but you have to keep being revolutionary. I can’t keep shooting pop stars all my life. You have to keep changing, keep pushing yourself, looking for the new, the unusual.”
Robert Capa 1913 – 1954
Capa was a Hungarian photojournalist known for his war photography. He is perhaps best known for photographing key events during World War II, including the D-Day landings.
44. “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.”
45. “The pictures are there, and you just take them.”
Robert Frank 1924
Frank is best known for his book The Americans, which was very influential, providing an outsider’s view of American society.
46. “The eye should learn to listen before it looks.”
Robert Mapplethorpe 1946 – 1989
Mapplethorpe was an American photographer who became known for his large-scale photographic images. His series of homoerotic portraits were subject to much controversy.
47. “The more pictures you see, the better you are as a photographer.”
Sally Mann 1951
Mann is a renowned American photographer. Her abstract, black and white photographs cover varied subjects including landscapes and portraits.
48. “Photographs open doors into the past, but they also allow a look into the future.”
Tim Walker 1970
Walker is a British fashion photographer whose work has been included in such highly-acclaimed titles as Vogue.
49. “Only photograph what you love.”
W Eugene Smith 1918 – 1978
Smith is best known for his hard-hitting photographs of World War II.
50. “Photography is a small voice, at best, but sometimes one photograph, or a group of them, can lure our sense of awareness.”
Eisenstaedt was a German photojournalist most famous for his much celebrated photograph of V-J Day in Times Square, New York.
1. “It is more important to click with people than to click the shutter.”
Alfred Stieglitz 1864 – 1946
Stieglitz was an American photographer internationally recognised as being a pioneer of modern photography.
2. “In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality.”
3. “Wherever there is light, one can photograph.”
Anne Geddes 1956
Geddes is known for her distinctive, stylised photographs of babies, which often incorporate floral imagery.
4. “The best images are the ones that retain their strength and impact over the years, regardless of the number of times they are viewed.”
5. “I think that emotional content is an image’s most important element, regardless of the photographic technique. Much of the work I see these days lacks the emotional impact to draw a reaction from viewers, or remain in their hearts.”
Annie Leibovitz 1949
Leibovitz is an American portrait photographer who made a name for herself in her ten-year role as chief photographer for Rolling Stone magazine.
6. “The camera makes you forget you’re there. It’s not like you are hiding but you forget, you are just looking so much.”
Ansel Adams 1902 – 1984
Adams is a photographer who needs no introduction! He is widely recognized as being one of the greatest landscape photographers, and greatest photographers, ever known.
7. “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.”
8. “Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.”
9. “There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.”
10. “A good photograph is knowing where to stand.”
August Sander 1876 – 1964
Sander – a German portrait and documentary photographer – has been described as ‘the most important German photographer of the twentieth century.’
11. “In photography there are no shadows that cannot be illuminated.”
Berenice Abbott 1898 – 1991
American photographer Abbott, had a career spanning more than 60 years. Her black and white images of New York provide an extensive record of the city’s architecture.
12. “Photography helps people to see.”
13. “Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past.”
Burk Uzzle 1938
Uzzle is an American documentary photographer. He still holds the title of the youngest photographer ever to be hired by Life Magazine.
14. “Photography is a love affair with life.”
Charlie Waite 1949
Waite is an award-winning English landscape photographer. His images have a painterly impression in their use of light and shade.
15. “A landscape image cuts across all political and national boundaries, it transcends the constraints of language and culture.”
David DuChemin
DuChemin is a humanitarian, nature, and adventure photographer. His work takes him to far-flung locations across the globe.
16. “Photographing a culture in the here and now often means photographing the intersection of the present with the past.”
Diane Arbus 1923 – 1971
Arbus was a documentary photographer famed for her images of marginalised peoples, particularly circus performers.
17. “A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.”
Don McCullin 1935
McCullin is a documentary photographer known for his war images, and images of urban and impoverished lifestyles.
18. “Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.”
Dorothea Lange 1895 – 1965
Lange was a photojournalist made famous by her photographs taken during the Depression-era in the United States.
19. “Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.”
20. “One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you’d be stricken blind.”
21. “A camera is a tool for learning how to see without a camera.”
22. “To know ahead of time what you’re looking for means you’re then only photographing your own preconceptions, which is very limiting, and often false.”
Edward Steichen 1879 – 1973
Steichen is known for producing the first fashion photographs ever published. The images of gowns were taken for Art et Décoration magazine in 1911.
23. “A portrait is not made in the camera but on either side of it.”
Edward Weston 1886 – 1958
Weston is famed as being one of the most influential American photographers of the twentieth century. He focused mainly on photographing landscape and lifestyle in the west of the US.
24. “To consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk.”
Ellen Von Unwerth 1954
Unwerth is known for her distinctively erotic style of fashion photography. She has shot for a number of high-profile fashion magazines, such as Vogue.
25. “I like to photograph anyone before they know what their best angles are.”
Elliott Erwitt 1928
Erwitt is a master of capturing ‘The Decisive Moment’; his street photography is known for it’s heart-warming charm.
26. “To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”
27. “It’s about reacting to what you see, hopefully without preconception. You can find pictures anywhere. It’s simply a matter of noticing things and organising them. You just have to care about what’s around you and have a concern with humanity and the human comedy.”
28. “The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don’t have to explain things with words.”
Ernst Haas 1921 – 1986
Photojournalist Haas was one of the first photographers to use colour in his work. His impressive career included becoming President of Magnum Photos, and publishing one of the most successful photography books ever.
29. “I am not interested in shooting new things – I am interested to see things new.”
30. “There is only you and your camera. The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are.”
Eve Arnold 1912 – 2012
Arnold was an award-winning photojournalist and member of Magnum Photos and published twelve photographic books in total.
31. “If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given. It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.”
Helmut Newton 1920 – 2004
Newton’s sexually charged fashion photography remains influential to this day.
32. “My job as a portrait photographer is to seduce, amuse and entertain.”
Henri Cartier-Bresson 1908 – 2004
Cartier-Bresson is widely regarded as one of the greatest photographers of all time. He is known as the father of photojournalism, and coined the term ‘The Decisive Moment’.
33. “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”
34. “The photograph itself doesn’t interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality.”
35. “To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition in a fraction of a second of the significance of an event.”
36. “To photograph is to hold one’s breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It’s at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.”
Imogen Cunningham 1883 – 1976
Cunningham’s work was particularly forward-thinking and experimental for its time. Her extensive work included shots of flowers, portraits and nudes.
37. “Which of my photographs is my favourite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow.”
Joe McNally 1952
McNally is an internationally acclaimed photographer known for his work with National Geographic Society, and for his collection of photographs showing Ground Zero in New York in the wake of 9/11.
38. “Don’t pack up your camera until you’ve left the location.”
Man Ray 1890 – 1976
Ray was a fashion and portrait photographer who was active in the Surrealist art movement. He’s best known for his avant-garde photography.
39. “Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask ‘how’, while others of a more curious nature will ask ‘why’. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.”
Martin Parr 1952
Parr’s documentary photography captures the humour of every day British life. He is aptly described as a ‘chronicler of our age’.
40. “With photography, I like to create a fiction out of reality. I try and do this by taking society’s natural prejudice and giving this a twist.”
Paul Caponigro 1932
Caponigro is known as one of American’s leading landscape photographers, although he also photographs still life.
41. “It’s one thing to make a picture of what a person looks like, it’s another thing to make a portrait of who they are.”
Philip Jones Griffiths 1936 – 2008
Jones Griffiths was a Welsh photojournalist. He is famed for his coverage of the Vietnam war.
42. “… we are there with our cameras to record reality. Once we start modifying that which exists, we are robbing photography of its most valuable attribute.”
Rankin 1966
Rankin is an English portrait and fashion photographer whose work has been widely shown in popular media.
43. “There’s a time when people say your work is revolutionary, but you have to keep being revolutionary. I can’t keep shooting pop stars all my life. You have to keep changing, keep pushing yourself, looking for the new, the unusual.”
Robert Capa 1913 – 1954
Capa was a Hungarian photojournalist known for his war photography. He is perhaps best known for photographing key events during World War II, including the D-Day landings.
44. “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.”
45. “The pictures are there, and you just take them.”
Robert Frank 1924
Frank is best known for his book The Americans, which was very influential, providing an outsider’s view of American society.
46. “The eye should learn to listen before it looks.”
Robert Mapplethorpe 1946 – 1989
Mapplethorpe was an American photographer who became known for his large-scale photographic images. His series of homoerotic portraits were subject to much controversy.
47. “The more pictures you see, the better you are as a photographer.”
Sally Mann 1951
Mann is a renowned American photographer. Her abstract, black and white photographs cover varied subjects including landscapes and portraits.
48. “Photographs open doors into the past, but they also allow a look into the future.”
Tim Walker 1970
Walker is a British fashion photographer whose work has been included in such highly-acclaimed titles as Vogue.
49. “Only photograph what you love.”
W Eugene Smith 1918 – 1978
Smith is best known for his hard-hitting photographs of World War II.
50. “Photography is a small voice, at best, but sometimes one photograph, or a group of them, can lure our sense of awareness.”
More Quotes on Photography
More Quotes on Art
“The artist never entirely knows — We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark” ~Agnes de Mille
“Creativity is discontent translated into arts.”-Eric Hoffer
“You don’t make art out of good intentions.” ~Gustave Flaubert
“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” ~Pablo Picasso
“When I say artist I mean the one who is building things … some with a brush – some with a shovel – some choose a pen.” ~Jackson Pollock
“The artist is always beginning. Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth.” ~Ezra Pound
“The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live.” ~Auguste Rodin
“The unfed mind devours itself.” ~Gore Vidal
“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” ~Vincent Van Gogh
“Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.” ~John W. Gardner
“There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into sun.” ~Pablo Picasso
“The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.” ~Walt Whitman
“The whole culture is telling you to hurry, while the art tells you to take your time. Always listen to the art.” ~Junot Diaz
“Art doesn’t have to be pretty. It has to be meaningful.” ~Duane Hanson
“To draw, you must close your eyes and sing” ~Pablo Picasso
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time”. ~Thomas Merton
“Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make. Good. Art.” ~Neil Gaiman
“The earth has music for those who listen.” ~William Shakespeare
“Art is not a thing, it is a way.” ~Elbert Hubbard
“Art is when you hear a knocking from your soul — and you answer.” ~Terri Guillemets
“Art reaches its greatest peak when devoid of self-consciousness. Freedom discovers man the moment he loses concern over what impression he is making or about to make.” ~Bruce Lee
“I am interested in art as a means of living a life; not as a means of making a living.” ~Robert Henri
“We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams.” ~Albert Einstein
“Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.” ~Jean-Luc Godard
”When it is working, you completely go into another place, you’re tapping into things that are totally universal, completely beyond your ego and your own self. That’s what it’s all about.” ~Keith Haring
“The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.” ~Robert Henri
”Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.” ~Steven Pressfield
“Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.” ~André Gide
“Art will remain the most astonishing activity of mankind born out of struggle between wisdom and madness, between dream and reality in our mind.” ~Magdalena Abakanowicz
“As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight.” ~James McNeil Whistler
“A piece of art is never a finished work. It answers a question which has been asked, and asks a new question.” ~Robert Engman
“The reason that art (writing, engaging, and all of it) is valuable is precisely why I can’t tell you how to do it. If there were a map, there’d be no art, because art is the act of navigating without a map.” ~Seth Godin
“As my artist’s statement explains, my work is utterly incomprehensible and is therefore full of deep significance” ~Calvin and Hobbes
“Great art picks up where nature ends.” ~Marc Chagall
“Sex is like art. Most of it is pretty bad, and the good stuff is out of your price range.” ~Scott Roeben
“Personality is everything in art and poetry.” ~Goethe
“No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time, it’s just that others are behind the times.” ~ Martha Graham
“I will be an artist or nothing!” ~Eugene O’Neill
“Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.” ~G.K. Chesterton
“The greatest respect an artist can pay to music is to give it life.” ~Pablo Casals
“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” ~ Edgar Degas
“Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to sell it.” ~Samuel Butler
“Art is literacy of the heart” ~Elliot Eisner
“Creativity is discontent translated into arts.”-Eric Hoffer
“You don’t make art out of good intentions.” ~Gustave Flaubert
“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” ~Pablo Picasso
“When I say artist I mean the one who is building things … some with a brush – some with a shovel – some choose a pen.” ~Jackson Pollock
“The artist is always beginning. Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth.” ~Ezra Pound
“The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live.” ~Auguste Rodin
“The unfed mind devours itself.” ~Gore Vidal
“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” ~Vincent Van Gogh
“Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.” ~John W. Gardner
“There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into sun.” ~Pablo Picasso
“The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.” ~Walt Whitman
“The whole culture is telling you to hurry, while the art tells you to take your time. Always listen to the art.” ~Junot Diaz
“Art doesn’t have to be pretty. It has to be meaningful.” ~Duane Hanson
“To draw, you must close your eyes and sing” ~Pablo Picasso
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time”. ~Thomas Merton
“Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make. Good. Art.” ~Neil Gaiman
“The earth has music for those who listen.” ~William Shakespeare
“Art is not a thing, it is a way.” ~Elbert Hubbard
“Art is when you hear a knocking from your soul — and you answer.” ~Terri Guillemets
“Art reaches its greatest peak when devoid of self-consciousness. Freedom discovers man the moment he loses concern over what impression he is making or about to make.” ~Bruce Lee
“I am interested in art as a means of living a life; not as a means of making a living.” ~Robert Henri
“We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams.” ~Albert Einstein
“Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.” ~Jean-Luc Godard
”When it is working, you completely go into another place, you’re tapping into things that are totally universal, completely beyond your ego and your own self. That’s what it’s all about.” ~Keith Haring
“The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.” ~Robert Henri
”Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.” ~Steven Pressfield
“Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.” ~André Gide
“Art will remain the most astonishing activity of mankind born out of struggle between wisdom and madness, between dream and reality in our mind.” ~Magdalena Abakanowicz
“As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight.” ~James McNeil Whistler
“A piece of art is never a finished work. It answers a question which has been asked, and asks a new question.” ~Robert Engman
“The reason that art (writing, engaging, and all of it) is valuable is precisely why I can’t tell you how to do it. If there were a map, there’d be no art, because art is the act of navigating without a map.” ~Seth Godin
“As my artist’s statement explains, my work is utterly incomprehensible and is therefore full of deep significance” ~Calvin and Hobbes
“Great art picks up where nature ends.” ~Marc Chagall
“Sex is like art. Most of it is pretty bad, and the good stuff is out of your price range.” ~Scott Roeben
“Personality is everything in art and poetry.” ~Goethe
“No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time, it’s just that others are behind the times.” ~ Martha Graham
“I will be an artist or nothing!” ~Eugene O’Neill
“Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.” ~G.K. Chesterton
“The greatest respect an artist can pay to music is to give it life.” ~Pablo Casals
“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” ~ Edgar Degas
“Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to sell it.” ~Samuel Butler
“Art is literacy of the heart” ~Elliot Eisner
On Beauty...
“The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.” ~Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
“Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness.” ~Pearl S. Buck
“Art must be an expression of love or it is nothing.” ~Marc Chagall
“Never love anybody who treats you like you’re ordinary.” ~Oscar Wilde
“At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough. You don’t need to photograph, paint, or even remember it. It is enough.” ~Toni Morrison
“Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” ~Rumi
“It is good to love many things, for therein lies true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.” ~Vincent van Gogh
“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.” ~A.A. Milne
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” ~Elizabeth Kubler Ross
“Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.” ~E.B. White
“Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” ~Henry Ward Beecher
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, but must be felt with the heart.” ~Helen Keller
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.” ~Albert Einstein
“Beauty is the illumination of your soul.” ~John O’Donohue
“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” ~Thornton Wilder
“The only journey is the one within.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
“All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien
“Paint the flying spirit of the bird rather than its feathers.” ~Robert Henri
“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart…” ~William Wordsworth
“The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.” ~Francis Bacon
“To be an artist is to believe in life.” ~ Henry Moore
“Are we to paint what’s on the face, what’s inside the face, or what’s behind it?” ~Picasso
“The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution.” ~Paul Cezanne
“Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness.” ~Pearl S. Buck
“Art must be an expression of love or it is nothing.” ~Marc Chagall
“Never love anybody who treats you like you’re ordinary.” ~Oscar Wilde
“At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough. You don’t need to photograph, paint, or even remember it. It is enough.” ~Toni Morrison
“Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” ~Rumi
“It is good to love many things, for therein lies true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.” ~Vincent van Gogh
“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.” ~A.A. Milne
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” ~Elizabeth Kubler Ross
“Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.” ~E.B. White
“Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” ~Henry Ward Beecher
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, but must be felt with the heart.” ~Helen Keller
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.” ~Albert Einstein
“Beauty is the illumination of your soul.” ~John O’Donohue
“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” ~Thornton Wilder
“The only journey is the one within.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
“All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien
“Paint the flying spirit of the bird rather than its feathers.” ~Robert Henri
“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart…” ~William Wordsworth
“The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.” ~Francis Bacon
“To be an artist is to believe in life.” ~ Henry Moore
“Are we to paint what’s on the face, what’s inside the face, or what’s behind it?” ~Picasso
“The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution.” ~Paul Cezanne
On Creativity...
“Dance first, think later” ~Samuel Beckett
“The thing about creativity is, people are going to laugh at it. Get over it.” ~Twyla Tharp
“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ~Pablo Picasso
“Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.” ~Coco Chanel
“Don’t ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ~Howard Thurman
“Inspiration comes and goes, creativity is the result of practice.” ~Phil Cousineau
“Go where the silence is and say something.” ~Amy Goodman
“Creativity is a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.” ~Arthur Koestler
“Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right or better.” ~John Updike
“Sometimes you gotta create what you want to be part of.” ~Geri Weitzman
“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.” ~John Maynard Keynes
“Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.” ~Ray Bradbury
“To copy the truth can be a good thing, but to invent the truth is better, much better.” ~Giuseppe Verdi
“Creativity is an act of defiance.” ~ Twyla Tharp
“Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard.” ~Anne Sexton
“It’s not where you take things from — it’s where you take them to.” ~Jean-Luc Godard
“Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity.” ~Edwin Land
“The ability to dream is all I have to give. That is my responsibility; that is my burden.” ~Harlan Ellison
“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” ~Leonardo da Vinci
“The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.” ~Orson Welles
“You don’t make art, you find it” ~Pablo Picasso
“Creativity is essentially a lonely art. An even lonelier struggle. To some a blessing. To others a curse. It is in reality the ability to reach inside yourself and drag forth from your very soul an idea.” ~Lou Dorfsman
“The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.” ~Pablo Picasso
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” ~G.B. Shaw
“Everything’s already been said, but since nobody was listening, we have to start again.” ~André Gide
“Creativity takes courage.” ~Henri Matisse
“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there. It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.” ~Ray Bradbury
“I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it.” ~Terry Pratchett
“How we spend our days is how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and with that one, is what we are doing.” ~Annie Dillard
“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” ~Albert Einstein
“I invent nothing, I rediscover.” ~Auguste Rodin
“To draw, you must close your eyes and sing” ~Pablo Picasso
“If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.” ~Marc Chagall
“Do not be satisfied with the stories that come before you. Unfold your own myth.” ~Rumi
“Find something only you can say” ~James Dickey
“Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found.” ~James Russell Lowell
“Free your mind and your ass will follow” ~George Clinton
“Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite–getting something down.” ~Julia Cameron
“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” ~Scott Adams
“The thing about creativity is, people are going to laugh at it. Get over it.” ~Twyla Tharp
“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ~Pablo Picasso
“Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.” ~Coco Chanel
“Don’t ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ~Howard Thurman
“Inspiration comes and goes, creativity is the result of practice.” ~Phil Cousineau
“Go where the silence is and say something.” ~Amy Goodman
“Creativity is a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.” ~Arthur Koestler
“Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right or better.” ~John Updike
“Sometimes you gotta create what you want to be part of.” ~Geri Weitzman
“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.” ~John Maynard Keynes
“Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.” ~Ray Bradbury
“To copy the truth can be a good thing, but to invent the truth is better, much better.” ~Giuseppe Verdi
“Creativity is an act of defiance.” ~ Twyla Tharp
“Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard.” ~Anne Sexton
“It’s not where you take things from — it’s where you take them to.” ~Jean-Luc Godard
“Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity.” ~Edwin Land
“The ability to dream is all I have to give. That is my responsibility; that is my burden.” ~Harlan Ellison
“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” ~Leonardo da Vinci
“The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.” ~Orson Welles
“You don’t make art, you find it” ~Pablo Picasso
“Creativity is essentially a lonely art. An even lonelier struggle. To some a blessing. To others a curse. It is in reality the ability to reach inside yourself and drag forth from your very soul an idea.” ~Lou Dorfsman
“The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.” ~Pablo Picasso
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” ~G.B. Shaw
“Everything’s already been said, but since nobody was listening, we have to start again.” ~André Gide
“Creativity takes courage.” ~Henri Matisse
“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there. It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.” ~Ray Bradbury
“I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it.” ~Terry Pratchett
“How we spend our days is how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and with that one, is what we are doing.” ~Annie Dillard
“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” ~Albert Einstein
“I invent nothing, I rediscover.” ~Auguste Rodin
“To draw, you must close your eyes and sing” ~Pablo Picasso
“If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.” ~Marc Chagall
“Do not be satisfied with the stories that come before you. Unfold your own myth.” ~Rumi
“Find something only you can say” ~James Dickey
“Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found.” ~James Russell Lowell
“Free your mind and your ass will follow” ~George Clinton
“Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite–getting something down.” ~Julia Cameron
“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” ~Scott Adams
and Mother Theresa on Life...
“Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is life, fight for it.”
~Mother Teresa
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is life, fight for it.”
~Mother Teresa
