W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

I think an artist's responsibility is more complex than people realize.

I think that all people who feel that there is injustice in the world anywhere should learn as much of it as they can bear. That is our duty.

I still feel that a movie has to attempt to say something - even if it fails miserably. But I've sort of given up on believing that I'm going to change the world with every film I choose to act in.

Art is not an end in itself, but a means of addressing humanity.

My position is that serious and good art has always existed to help, to serve, humanity. Not to indict. I don't see how art can be called art if its purpose is to frustrate humanity.

If an artist is driven primarily by social responsibility, I think the art probably suffers because, again, just as leadership has a rather defined end point or purpose, social responsibility would seem to have a very clear moral context.

Art never harms itself by keeping aloof from the social problems of the day: rather, by so doing, it more completely realises for us that which we desire.

Art and politics must move closer together. Reflection and action must be equally valid in good men if history is not to take one course and art another.

People like Dick Gregory, Paul Robeson, Harry Belafonte and Nina Simone show me what the definition of an artist is - it isn't just to make art but to speak truth to what's happening, speak beauty into the world, speak love into the world and also... get involved.

At this point, in 2008, if you put out a book, a movie, or write a verse, paint a painting, it should have some sort of social value.

Art is supposed to spark conversation and make people think.

All art is propaganda...I do not care a damn, for any art that is not used for propaganda.

I wish to boast that Pygmalion has been an extremely successful play all over Europe and North America as well as at home. It is so intensely and deliberately didactic, and its subject is esteemed so dry, that I delight in throwing it at the heads of the wiseacres who repeat the parrot cry that art should never be didactic. It goes to prove my contention that art should never be anything else.

Art for art's sake makes no more sense than gin for gin's sake.

In my low periods, I wondered what was the point of creating art. For whom? Are we animating God? Are we talking to ourselves? And what was the ultimate goal? To have one's work caged in art's great zoos - the Modern, the Met, the Louvre?

My words, my writing, my actions—these have never been for myself alone, either directly or indirectly. There is no such thing as an artist who creates art only for himself. That is masturbation.

You see, a document has use, whereas art is really useless. Therefore art is never a document, although it can adopt that style.

Art's true purpose is to be human as opposed to some rarefied activity set away from real life. I think art should help you to navigate the real challenges of being a human being.

Art should be on the side of humanity.

What we also need to have a discussion on the philosophy of art: so we must ask what is it that we want in the first place? Is it just about saying and doing whatever you want, or is it about something more? We should let the artist be free, but we must also question how exactly he deals with freedom. Is it arts for elevation or arts for destruction? Is there dignity in the process?

Art needs to stand for something.

The magic question is, 'What for?' But art is not for anything. Art is the ultimate goal.

I think didactic art is boring. I mean, I love it in terms of, like, some of the historical precedents that I've learned from. You needed that. We needed those building blocks in terms of - you know, when I look at a great Barbara Kruger, for example, and you're thinking about, you know, the woman's position in society - you know, she found a way of making it beautiful, but at the same time it's very sort of preachy, you know what I mean?

I think it's misleading to think that art is only there for escapism, only there for our dreams of being rich and f - king whoever we wanna f - k.

Life is more important than art; that's what makes art important.