Herbert Marcuse Quotes

The only way to get change is not through the courts or - heaven forbid - the politicians, but through a change of human consciousness and through a change of heart. Only through the arts - music, poetry, dance, painting, writing - "can we really reach each other.

The artist has tremendous power to change the world.

Art isn't supposed to change the world, but it can.

If people really stopped and realized how much art and creative people move the world versus politics and religion, I mean it’s not even up for debate. An artist at least creates things, puts things into the world. Where as these other people are destroying things, taking things out of the world.

Auden said poetry makes nothing happen. But I wonder if the opposite could be true. It could make something happen.

Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.

Can art change the world? Maybe... we should change the question: Can art change people's lives?

Art has the power to transform, to illuminate, to educate, inspire and motivate.

Art is not a mirror to reflect the world, but a hammer with which to shape it

Art, it is said, is not a mirror, but a hammer: it does not reflect, it shapes.

You can positively affect and change a social circumstance with art, and it’s vital that a change happens now.

The arts can bring the heart to the aid of the head, the personal to the political.

Burmese authors and artists can play the role that artists everywhere play. They help to mold the outlook of a society - not the whole outlook and they are not the only ones to mold the outlook of society, but they have an important role to play there. And I think if they take up this role seriously and link it to the kind of changes were wish to bring about in our country they could be a tremendous help.

Artists reach areas far beyond the reach of politicians. Art, especially entertainment and music, is understood by everybody, and it lifts the spirits and the morale of those who hear it.

Art has political consequences, which is to say, it reorganizes society and creates constituencies of people around it.

A writer or painter cannot change the world. But they can keep an essential margin of nonconformity alive.

Art can compel people freely, gladly, and spontaneously to sacrifice themselves in the service of man.

The arts, it has been said, cannot change the world, but they may change human beings who might change the world.

How can art make a difference in the world?

I thought poetry could change everything, could change history and could humanize, and I think that the illusion is very necessary to push poets to be involved and to believe, but now I think that poetry changes only the poet.

My work is not, of course, pure art in the sense that Schmidt-Rottluff's is, but it is art nonetheless... It is all right with me that my work serves a purpose. I want to have an effect on my time, in which human beings are so confused and in need of help.

Music and improving the world are two sides of the same coin.

The practise of an art is essential to the whole man, not because of what art is but because of what art does to the artist.

Patti, did art get us?' I looked away, not really wanting to think about it. 'I don't know, Robert. I don't know.' Perhaps it did, but no one could regret that. Only a fool would regret being had by art; or a saint.

I have a great deal of hope. I think that change is here, it's happening. But I know that if we think it's just going to happen on its own, that's not the way it works. We need people to keep talking about women of color writing comics and living the charge. Not just talking but doing. Making art, putting it out there.