Paul Rand Quotes

I do not oppose form, but only form as a goal.

If you want to communicate something, you'd better make sure that your design piece is well-dressed and that its teeth are fixed. At the same time, I still believe that if it is only stylistically great and it has nothing to say, it still is not going to make a lasting impression on anybody.

Truly great architecture always transcends its stated function, sometimes in unanticipated ways.

There must be some one quality without which a work of art cannot exist; possessing which, in the least degree, no work is altogether worthless.

In addressing a task, one almost always has several possible options, sometimes only a few, and they may all be practical and functional. But they lack the aesthetic aspect that raises it to architecture.

A painting that doesn't shock isn't worth painting.

I abhor mere prettiness.

Unless a piece really said something, I had no interest in it. I have got to know that I have served some purpose here.

We can't put up a movie that looks beautiful but doesn't have substance.

For me, architecture is not just creating a space to protect people but to make them dream as well.

...The more a picture has to give, the greater it is.

Art is good, bad, boring, ugly, useful to us or not. It does or doesn't disturb optical monotony, and succeeds or fails in surmounting sterility of style or visual stereotype; it creates new beauty or it doesn't.

The work should talk.

I think that some of the writing, directing, and the content is better than a lot of movies sometimes. Actors, well artists in general - actors, writers, directors - what we all care about the most is good work and being able to create something that is really resonant and meaningful.

The purpose of poetry is to make life complete in itself.

Didacticism is the death of art.

The art of music is good, for the reason, among others, that it produces pleasure; but what proof is it possible to give that pleasure is good? If, then, it is asserted that there is a comprehensive formula, including all things which are in themselves good, and that whatever else is good, is not so as an end, but as a mean, the formula may be accepted or rejected, but is not a subject of what is commonly understood by proof.

The entire vitality of art depends upon its being either full of truth, or full of use; and that, however pleasant, wonderful, or impressive it may be in itself, it must yet be of inferior kind, and tend to deeper inferiority, unless it has clearly one of these main objects, either to state a true thing, or to adorn a serviceable one.

The work of art may have a moral effect, but to demand moral purpose from the artist is to make him ruin his work.

Literature ceases to be literature when it commits itself to moral uplift; it becomes moral philosophy or some such dull thing.

While art may instruct as well as please, it can nevertheless be true art without instructing, but not without pleasing.

Bad art is never really enjoyed in the same sense in which good art is enjoyed. It is only "liked": it never startles, prostrates, and takes captive.

The greater the length, the more beautiful will the piece be by reason of its size, provided that the whole be perspicuous.

Shall I tell you what I think are the two qualities of a work of art? First, it must be indescribable, and second, it must be inimitable.

Objective painting is not good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense. A hill or tree cannot make a good painting just because it is a hill or tree. It is lines and colors put together so that they may say something.