Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Art must take reality by surprise. It takes those moments which are for us merely a moment, plus a moment, plus another moment, and arbitrarily transforms them into a special series of moments held together by a major emotion.

Such is the strength of art, rough things to shape.

perhaps the only magician we have is the artist.

ART is domination. It's making people think that for that precise moment in time there is only one way, one voice. Yours.

I can paint pictures, but I cannot rule men.

To be honest, I think, for me, the power is always with art. The art world clearly couldn't happen without art.

Every artistic expression is either influenced by or adds something to politics.

I'm starting to get a following on Twitter. That's a really awesome power to have. It gives me the opportunity to make any kind of art I want.

Influence is a very unpleasant subject and I deal with it in a maybe irresponsible way, which is to really ignore it. It would be a nightmare if we started to really think about it; it would tie our hands, it would tie everyone else's hands.

I grew up in the '60s, which was a creative time, so it wasn't that big of a stretch to go from a baseball bat to a guitar to a film camera.

To speak of morals in art is to speak of legislature in sex. Art is the sex of the imagination.

Art has always been and is in its very essence the boldest departure from nature. It is the bridge into the spirit world.

All artists are anarchists in some way - some more extreme than others, but it's something that I think artists are supposed to do. We're supposed to present a different angle on everything, and I certainly think it is [art] as much as poetry, in my opinion.

To admire on principle is the only way to imitate without loss of originality.

Art is a severe business; most serious when employed in grand and sacred objects. The artist stands higher than art, higher than the object. He uses art for his purposes, and deals with the object after his own fashion.

This is what it is the business of the artist to do. Art is theft, art is armed robbery, art is not pleasing your mother.

Art! What a concept! It saved my life! A place where you can do as you please!

Art is the expression of imagination, not the reproduction of reality.

Art is enchantment and artists have the right of spells.

Those who have ruled human destinies, like planets, for thousands of years, were not handsome men.

I don't think there's anything really wrong with influence because I think that one can use another man's art as material either literally or just implying that they're doing that, without it representing a lack of a point of view.

Sure, I can talk like you, but I choose not to, It's like an art, you know? Picasso had to prove to the world he could paint the right way, before he goes putting both eyes on the side of a face... See if you paint wrong because that's the best you can do, you just a chump. But you do it because you want to? Then you're an artist...You can take that to the grave and dig it up when you need it.

I am interested in making up a good case for distortion, as I am coming to believe it is the only way to make people see.

I don't *ever* write about real people. Art is supposed to be better than that. If you want a slice of life, look out the window.

We are hardly ever as strong as that which we create.