Hendrik Willem Van Loon Quotes

Artists are often the barometers of society.

Every artistic expression is either influenced by or adds something to politics.

The idea of entrepreneurship applies as much in politics, religion, society and the arts as it does in business.

Our culture is more shaped by the arts and humanities than it often is by politics.

Art, freedom and creativity will change society faster than politics.

There's a lot of thought in art. People get to talk about important things. There's a lot of sex, you know, in art. There's a lot of naked women and men, and there's intrigue, there's fakery. It's a real microcosm of the larger world.

You can't get a contemporary story about what is going on inside government, and how society sees itself, on American TV.

We live in a world of crisis, of challenge, and... it's in our galleries that we can unpack the civilizations that we're seeing the current manifestations of.

My second record was all about big ideas - I was trying to make big statements about the culture, about life. I think in a certain way, I was a 27 year old kid with a guitar.

Basically, an artist should be a mirror, or a reflection of society or his or her environment. What you see is what you can articulate.

Art is the signature of civilizations.

Cinema is a reflection of its own society.

Literature offers not just a window into the culture of diverse regions, but also the society, the politics; it's the only place where we can keep track of ideas.

Poetry can tell us about what's going on in our lives - not only our personal but our social and political lives.

Every age has its own poetry; in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry.

Sometimes people say I'm a political comedian, which, actually I'm not. I'm a comedian who sometimes discusses politics, culture - again, the word 'politics' to me is just life.

Architecture is a political art connecting our values to the ages.

In the world today all culture, all literature and art belong to definite classes and are geared to definite political lines. There is in fact no such thing as art for art's sake, art that stands above classes or art that is detached from or independent of politics.

To have a National Endowment for the Arts is to sanction creativity, to provide space to support the poetic, and to give meaning to struggle, hope and life. The artist interprets and represents for us perspectives so that we can question, focus and reexamine our worlds, to imagine the possible and the impossible. The culture and arts of America are our greatest asset.

If you kill the arts, you kill love, and you kill progress.

Poetry always, always, always is a key piece of democracy.

My films are a reflection of the society I live in, what I see and observe.

I believe films are the mirror of society we live in.

All good art should be political, I think, and inevitably it all becomes political really, in one way or another.

I write songs based on things I see in the culture around me.