Felix Mendelssohn Quotes

Everything we've ever done has been for artistry's sake, and for the greater good and paying homage to those who came before us and paving the way for those who come after us.

A writer is an artist. They're creating things out of thin air.

Whose best and most fruitful gift was the power of admiration, which made it possible for me to learn. Now, as in my youth, I am looking up to the truly great creations of the past, which I see high above my own and which alone deserve the name of greatness.

Artists are people with a genius for finding a new answer, a new connection, or a new way of getting things done.

It was Sophie ( Sophie Arp Tauber, woman artist and later Arp's wife) who, by the example of her work and her life, both of them bathed in clarity, showed me the right way. In her world, the high and the low, the light and the dark, the eternal and the ephemeral, are balanced in prefect equilibrium.

I'm a sponge, the more I absorb, the more I am able to articulate my vision, as artists do, like Picasso. I'm an artist in that light. I went from being an artist to an artiste.

It is only the unimaginative who ever invents. The true artist is known by the use he makes of what he annexes.

An artist must have imagination. An artist who does not use his imagination is a mechanic.

Be the artist you were born to be.

When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature.

There is no such thing as an artist: there is only the world lit or unlit as the light allows. When the candle is burning, who looks at the wick? When the candle is out, who needs it?

When you're working with other artists, it's often a mix of your ideas with somebody else's, which can be extremely fruitful. But then it's also interesting to present the completely undiluted vision of what I imagine music could be. I care about both my own music and collaboration equally, and I pretty much split my time equally, as well.

But anyone with the time and the inclination can acquire technical proficiency. To achieve greatness, though, that requires artistry. That requires imagination and thoughtfulness.

A great artist ... takes what he did not make and makes of it something that only he can make.

The way that I'm working now is basically the way I've been working since I was a kid: Find the greatest artist in whatever you do, and rip them off with respect. I think there's a big difference between ripping off with respect and ripping off in disrespect.

The Man of Genius may at the same time be, indeed is commonly, an Artist, but the two are not to be confounded. The Man of Genius,referred to mankind, is an originator, an inspired or demonic man, who produces a perfect work in obedience to laws yet unexplored. The artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected. There has been no man of pure Genius, as there has been none wholly destitute of Genius.

The poet is he who inspires, rather than he who is inspired.

The artist brings something into the world that didn't exist before, and he does it without destroying something else.

An artist’s imagination is his greatest tool

The great artist takes what he needs.

If you paint the leaf on a tree without using a model, your imagination will only supply you with a few leaves; but Nature offers you millions, all on the same tree. No two leaves are exactly the same. The artist who paints only what is in his mind must very soon repeat himself.

Great writers create; writers of smaller gifts copy

A great man will find a great subject, or which is the same thing, make any subject great.

Nature paints the best part of a picture, carves the best parts of the statue, builds the best part of the house, and speaks the best part of the oration.

It is very bad for (an artist) to talk about how he (creates). It is not the (artist's) province to explain or to run guided tours through the more difficult country of his work. It's none of their business that you had to learn. Let them think you were born that way.