Inspiring Painting Quotes to Ignite Your Creativity

"Painting is a means of self-enlightenment."

- John Olsen

"To create one’s own world takes courage."

- Georgia O'Keeffe

"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 your own experience."

- Berthe Morisot

"To be an artist is to believe in life."

- Henry Moore

"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

"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

"I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart."

- Vincent van Gogh

"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

"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

"Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one."

- Stella Adler

"I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say 'he feels deeply, he feels tenderly.'"

- Vincent van Gogh

"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

"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 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. Seuss

"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

"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

"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 man paints with his brains and not with his hands."

- Michelangelo

"The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable."

- Robert Henri

"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

"The chief enemy of creativity is ‘good’ sense."

- Pablo Picasso

"Creativity is magic. Don’t examine it too closely."

- Edward Albee

"Art is not a thing, it is a way."

- Elbert Hubbard

"Color is the place where our brain and the universe meet."

- Paul Klee

"Art is a line around your thoughts."

- Gustav Klimt

"Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist."

- Pablo Picasso

"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

"Great art picks up where nature ends."

- Marc Chagall

"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

"The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech."

- Vincent van Gogh

"Every act of creation is, first of all, an act of destruction."

- Pablo Picasso

"If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced."

- Vincent van Gogh

"Every canvas is a journey all its own."

- Helen Frankenthaler

"I dream my paintings, and then they paint my dream."

- Vincent van Gogh

"We, by our arts may be called the grandsons of God."

- Leonardo da Vinci

"If one really loves nature, one can find beauty everywhere."

- Vincent van Gogh

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."

- Pablo Picasso

"Painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is a painting which is heard but not seen."

- Leonardo da Vinci

"All you need to paint is a few tools, a little instruction, and a vision in your mind."

- Bob Ross

"The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity."

- Alberto Giacometti

"I don’t paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality."

- Frida Kahlo

"We all know that Art is not the truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand."

- Pablo Picasso

"All artists, whether they know it or not create from a place of inner stillness, a place of no mind."

- Eckhart Tolle

"To create one’s own world in any of the arts takes courage."

- Georgia O'Keeffe

"I love to look at art, I love to look at paintings, and I almost feel like the experience isn’t complete until I’ve made something of my own."

- Cecily Brown

"I do not seek. I find. (Je ne cherche pas; je trouve)"

- Pablo Picasso

"If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint."

- Edward Hopper

"Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible."

- Paul Klee

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

- George Bernard Shaw

"Art is never finished, only abandoned."

- Leonardo da Vinci

"The only time I am truly in the Now is when I paint."

- Lori McNee

"The purpose of truly transcendent art is to express something you are not yet, but that you can become."

- Ken Wilber

"Creativity takes courage."

- Henri Matisse

"Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun."

- Pablo Picasso

"Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together."

- John Ruskin

"A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art."

- Paul Cézanne

"We have art in order not to die of life."

- Albert Camus

"Art is not the possession of the few who are recognized writers, painters, musicians; it is the authentic expression of any and all individuality."

- John Dewey

"The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Art is everywhere, except it has to pass through a creative mind."

- Louise Nevelson

"The artist has one function–to affirm and glorify life."

- W. Edward Brown

"Painting is just another way of keeping a diary."

- Pablo Picasso

"Creativity belongs to the artist in each of us. To create means to relate."

- Corita Kent

"Passion is one great force that unleashes creativity, because if you’re passionate about something, then you’re more willing to take risks."

- Yo-Yo Ma

"An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision."

- James McNeill Whistler

"The world speaks to me in colours, my soul answers in music."

- Rabindranath Tagore

"The primary benefit of practising any art, whether well or badly, is that it enables one’s soul to grow."

- Kurt Vonnegut

"All great transcendental art is not merely symbolic or imaginary: it is a direct invitation to recognize and realize a deeper dimension of our very own being."

- Ken Wilber

"All art requires courage."

- Anne Tucker

"Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best."

- Henry van Dyke

"A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy."

- Edgar Degas

"I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality."

- Frida Kahlo

"Life is short, art is long."

- John Ringling

"Art is not a pastime but a priesthood."

- Jean Cocteau

"A painting to me is primarily a verb, not a noun, an event first and only secondarily an image."

- Elaine de Kooning

"The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel."

- Piet Mondrian

"What would it be like if you lived each day, each breath, as a work of art in progress?"

- Thomas Crum

"The measure of the artist is to have the eye to see the spirit underlying the particulars, and the skill to capture both in paint."

- Marney Ward

"Art is an effort to make you walk a half an inch above ground."

- Yoko Ono

"An artist never really finishes his work; he merely abandons it."

- Paul Valéry

"The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection."

- Michelangelo

"Art at its most significant is a distant early warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen."

- Marshall McLuhan

"The nature of the masterpieces is not to dazzle. Their nature is to persuade, to convince, to enter into us through our pores."

- Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

"Painting is the grandchild of nature. It is related to God."

- Rembrandt van Rijn

"The enemy of art is the absence of limitations."

- Orson Welles

"Art completes what nature cannot bring to finish."

- Aristotle

"Art is meant to disturb, science reassures."

- Georges Braque

"Every good painter paints what he is."

- Jackson Pollock

"The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak."

- Hans Hofmann

"There is no substitute for feeling the stone, the metal, the plaster, or the wood in the hand; to feel its weight; to feel its texture; to struggle with it in the world rather than in the mind alone."

- William M. Dupree

"There is no genius where there is not simplicity."

- Tolstoy

"Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art."

- Andy Warhol

"Art is not a thing; it is a way."

- Elbert Hubbard

"If museums and galleries could only show what everyone liked, they would be empty."

- Eric Gibbons

"To be an artist at twenty is to be twenty: to still be an artist at fifty is to be an artist."

- Eric Gibbons

"The artist does not see things as they are, but as he is."

- Alfred Tonnelle

"Bad artists always admire each other’s work."

- Oscar Wilde

"To send light into the darkness of men's hearts - such is the duty of the artist."

- Robert Schumann

"Art has two constant, two unending concerns: It always meditates on death and thus always creates life."

- Boris Pasternak

"Art, Undeniably, is conductive to happiness."