W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

Art is not the spiritual side of business.

The job of art is to chase ugliness away.

That's what art is. You don't make up stories. You live your life.

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.

Art is science made flesh.

Those who are concerned with the arts are often asked questions, not always sympathetic ones, about the use or value of what they are doing. It is probably impossible to answer such questions directly, or at any rate to answer the people who ask them.

Art is both creation and recreation.

We have our Arts so we won't die of Truth.

Even luxuries are arranged according to ideas and ideals, to make them reflect as much of thought-life as possible - and this is Art.

The word "art" does not designate the concept of a mere eventuality; it is a concept of rank.

Without art we would be nothing but foreground and live entirely in the spell of that perspective which makes what is closest at hand and most vulgar appear as if it were vast, and reality itself.

the arts are life accelerated and concentrated.

Do not imagine that Art is something which is designed to give gentle uplift and self-confidence . Art is not a brassiere. At least, not in the English sense. But do not forget that brassiere is the French word for life-jacket.

It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance, for our consideration and application of these things, and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.

There is no surer method of evading the world than by following Art, and no surer method of linking oneself to it than by Art.

There is nothing new in art except talent.

I have to say that I reject somewhat the distinction between something called art and something called public art. I think all art demands and desires to be seen.

We're all going about trying to make beauty in the world and trying to make order out of chaos. And that's what art is.

Drawing is a way of coming upon the connection between things, just like metaphor in poetry reconnects what has become separated.

I have a fondness for making paintings that go beyond just having a conversation about art for art's sake or having a conversation about art history. I actually really enjoy looking at broader popular culture.

Art in relation to life is nothing more than a glove turned inside out. It seems to have the same shapes and contours, but it can never be used for the same purpose. Art teaches nothing about life, just as life teaches us nothing about art.

You can’t teach art, so ART SCHOOL is a contradiction in terms.

How do I define a work of art? It is not an asset in the stock-exchange sense, but a man's timid attempt to repeat the miracle that the simplest peasant girl is capable of at any time, that of magically producing life out of nothing.

Without artists, the order which we find in nature, and which is only an effect of art, would at once vanish.

You know what ART stands for? Above Real Truth.