Mary Oliver Quotes

I mean, art for art's sake is ridiculous. Art is for the sake of one's needs.

I think that a society lives or dies according to its respect for - for its art.

The importance of the arts to the societies in which they thrive is well documented.

Art is not meant to change the world.

I don't believe that art is just for entertainment. I want to create art that is meaningful in some way.

Art matters.

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

Art is much less important than life, but what a poor life without it.

If my art has nothing to do with people's pain and sorrow, what is 'art' for?

I think art is good at looking back and looking forward. I don't think art is good at looking head-on. At the end of the day, people are more important than paintings.

Certainly being in California has encouraged a sustained commitment to rethinking the nature, purposes, and relevance of the contemporary arts, specifically music, for a society which by and large seems to manage quite well without them.

The older I get, I'm really reminded how important the arts are to our wellbeing as a society.

We have to remind people how important arts are. People just don't see it.

The arts are a response to our individuality and our nature and help to shape our identity. The arts are not a frill and should not be treated as such.

The idea that one might use art for 'instrumental' reasons tends to set off alarm bells at the heart of the cultural elite, who contend that it's not a pill, that it shouldn't be asked to perform some specific function, especially something as egocentric as to 'cheer you up' or to 'make you a more empathetic person.'

You can't argue that you have to have art, and prove it to anybody. Why should I give $1,000 to art when there are people starving? Of course, that's true. But just because you can't, theoretically, defend the arts, or make a sensible argument for their preservation, doesn't mean they're not important.

The arts are valuable because they increase our sense of what it means to be human, not because of any specific skill or ability they confer.

I believe that the arts of a culture are terribly important and yet almost indefensible.

The purpose of art is to accumulate the human within the human being.

I can't think of anything outside of having the gift yourself and creating yourself. I can't think of the next better thing to do than being able to put it back. Creative expression, I think, is vital to the success of any society.... A society without art will die.

The life of the arts is far from an interruption, a distraction, in the life of a nation, is close to the center of a nation's purpose-and is a test of the quality of a nations' civilization.

In Europe they understand that the arts are incredibly important both culturally and economically.

...combining the concrete and the universal is at the center of what makes art important.

Music must serve a purpose; it must be a part of something larger than itself, a part of humanity.

Art is not some inessential frippery - it is the nation's means of intelligently regarding itself. To cripple or stigmatize the arts is to doom one's nation to a life of incuriosity, dullness, literalness and the worst kind of rank materialism.