Vaclav Havel Quotes

There is only one Art, whose sole criterion is the power, the authenticity, the revelatory insight, the courage and suggestiveness with which it seeks its truth. ... Thus, from the standpoint of the work and its worth it is irrelevant to which political ideas the artist as a citizen claims allegiance, which ideas he would like to serve with his work or whether he holds any such ideas at all.

In art there is a need for truth, not sincerity.

I'm not just painting for painting's sake. I want to be truthful.

Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth.

Rozay is an artist himself so he understands the importance of being true to your work.

An artist worthy of the name should express all the truth of nature, not only the exterior truth, but also, and above all, the inner truth.

The fine arts once divorcing themselves from truth are quite certain to fall mad, if they do not die.

Style is the thing that's always a bit phony, and at the same time you cannot write without style.

In art, one does not aim for simplicity; one achieves it unintentionally as one gets closer to the real meaning of things.

Commit to finding the true nature of art. Go for that thing no one can teach you.

It is in its pure form that an art hits hard.

Only dull and impotent artists screen their work with sincerity. In art there is need for truth, not sincerity.

A work of art contains its verification in itself: artificial, strained concepts do not withstand the test of being turned into images; they fall to pieces, turn out to be sickly and pale, convince no one. Works which draw on truth and present it to us in live and concentrated form grip us, compellingly involve us, and no one ever, not even ages hence, will come forth to refute them.

All art is autobiographical - if it's not, it's not going to quicken on-stage, and it's not going to come alive.

Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness.

To be an artist is not about fame; it's about art, which is this intangible thing that has got to have lots of integrity, whereas being famous doesn't really take any integrity. But I think you have to admit that you want to be famous, otherwise you can't be an artist. Art and fame together are like a desire to live forever.

"The way I feel about music -- any song, any style -- is that there is no right and wrong, only true and false. If the music and lyrics are conceived out of honesty and if the production of the song goes along with its original message, then what has been expressed is art, regardless of what anyone's opinion is of it. So things are a lots impler if you just tell the truth.

There’s only one subject for fiction or poetry or even a joke: how it is. In all the arts, the payoff is always the same: recognition. If it works, you say that’s real, that’s truth, that’s life, that’s the way things are. ‘There it is.’

if you tell yourself the great lie of bad art-that you are in charge-your chance at the truth will be lost. The truth isn't always pretty.

When we think we don't like art it is because it is artificial art.

And if there is still one hellish, truly accursed thing in our time, it is our artistic dallying with forms, instead of being like victims burnt at the stake, signaling through the flames.

In a world of lies and liars, an honest work of art is always an act of social responsibility.

In art, there are only two types of people: revolutionaries and plagiarists. And in the end, doesn't the revolutionary's work become official, once the State takes it over?

I believe I am looking for rightness. My work has so much to do with reality that I wanted to have a corresponding rightness. That excludes painting in imitation. In nature everything is always right: the structure is right, the proportions are good, the colours fit the forms. If you imitate that in painting, it becomes false.

I think the majority of musicians are interested in truth.