"I quote others only the better to express myself."

        -         Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, 1533 – 1592

 

FAVOURITE QUOTATIONS ABOUT ART

 

"Painting, n. The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic."

        -         Ambrose Bierce, 1842-1913

 

"The good critic is one who recounts the adventures of his soul among masterpieces."

        -         Anatole France, 1844 – 1922

 

"Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers."

        -         Willa Cather, 1873 – 1947

 

"The most pathetic man in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision."

        -         Helen Keller, 1880-1968

 

"Nothing is so poor and melancholy as art that is interested in itself and not its subject."

        -         George Santayana, 1863 – 1952

 

"It takes a long time to make a painter - even with a good artist's education - but without one it tries the patience of Job; it is a great thing if one does not go backward."

        -        Edward Lear, 1812-1888

 

"'Tis God gives skill, but not without men's hands; He could not make Antonio Stradivari's violins without Antonio. Get thee to thy easel."

        -        George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), 1819-1880

 

"No artist produces great art by a deliberate attempt to express his own personality."

        -        T. S. Eliot, 1888-1965

 

"Art can't hurt you."

        -        Fred Frabb

 

"There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and railways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to be ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection."

        -        Herbert George Wells, 1866 - 1946

 

"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."

        -        Thomas Merton, 1915-1968

 

"Art is never finished, only abandoned."

        -        Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519

 

 

OTHER FAVOURITE QUOTATIONS

 

"Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons and daughters of the earth.

We did not create the web of life; we are merely a strand in it.

Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves."

        -        Chief Seattle, 1788-1866 Native American (Suquamish) leader

 

"One trouble with growing old is that it gets progressively tougher to find a famous historical figure, who didn’t amount to much when he was your age."

        -         Edgar Watson Howe, 1853-1937

 

"Christopher Columbus, as everyone knows, is honoured by posterity because he was the last to discover America."

            - James Joyce, 1882 - 1941

 

"To say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave toward God, and a coward towards men."

        -        Francis Bacon, 1561-1626

 

"Boredom is a sign of satisfied ignorance, blunted apprehension, crass sympathies, dull understanding, feeble powers of attention, and irredeemable weakness of character."

        -        James Brodie, 1888-1915

 

Managerium

        The heaviest element known to science is Managerium.

        This element has no protons or electrons, but it does have a nucleus composed of 1 neutron, 2 vice-neutrons, 5 junior vice-neutrons, 25 assistant vice-neutrons, and 25 junior assistant vice-neutrons all going round in circles.

        Managerium has a half-life of three years, at which time it does not decay but institutes a series of reviews leading to reorganisation.

        Its molecules are held together by means of the exchange of tiny particles known as morons.

        -        Anonymous

 

"Absence abates a moderate passion and intensifies a great one - as the wind blows out a candle but fans fire into flame."

        -        Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims

 

"Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate."

        -        Chuang Tzu, 369 - 286 BC

 

"If the world were a logical place, men would ride side-saddle"

         -       Rita Mae Brown

 

"If you haven't any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble."

        -        Bob Hope

 

"I've been on a calendar, but never on time."

        -        Marilyn Monroe, 1926 – 1962

 

"It's not true I had nothing on, I had the radio on."

        -        Marilyn Monroe, 1926 - 1962

 

"Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told, 'I am with you kid.  Let's go!'"

        -        Maya Angelou

 

"Classic nineteenth century European imperialists believed they were literally on a mission. I don't believe that the imperialists these days have that same sense of public service. They are simply pirates."

        -        John Pilger

 

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."

        -        Henry Lewis Mencken, 1880 – 1956

 

"You don't set a fox to watching the chickens just because he has a lot of experience in the hen house."

        -        Harry S Truman, 1884 – 1972

 

"When small men cast long shadows the sun is going down."

        -        Venita Cravens

 

"If you board the wrong train, it's no use running along the corridor in the other direction."

        -        Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906 – 1945

 

"I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards."

        -        Abraham Lincoln, 1809 – 1865

 

"Never under-exaggerate."

        -        Dennis James Mynall, 1912-1984

 

"The man who views the world at fifty the same as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life."

        -        Muhammad Ali, 1942-

 

"The way I see it, if you want a rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain."

        -        Dolly Parton, 1946-

 

"An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup. "

        -        Henry Louis Mencken, 1880 – 1956

 

"The American landscape has no foreground and the American mind no background."

        -        Edith Wharton, 1862-1937

 

"Nothing seems to please a fly so much as to be taken for a currant, and if it can be baked in a cake and palmed off on the unwary, it dies happy."

        -        Mark Twain, 1835 – 1910

 

"It is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel."

        -        Benjamin Franklin, 1706 – 1790

 

"When you create you get a little endorphin rush. Why do you think Einstein looked like that?"

        -        Robin Williams

 

"Erotica is using a feather; pornography is using the whole chicken."

        -        Isabel Allende

 

"We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the light of every passing ship."

       -        Omar Nelson Bradley, 1893 – 1981

 

"Natives who beat drums to drive off evil spirits are objects of scorn to smart Americans who blow horns to break up traffic jams."

       -        Mary Ellen Kelly

 

“What we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down.”

       -        Mary Pickford

 

"The classes that wash most are those that work least."

       -        Gilbert Keith Chesterton, 1874 – 1936

 

"Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care."

       -        William Safire

 

"People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us."

       -        Iris Murdoch, 1919 - 1999

 

"Never pick a fight with an ugly person, they've got nothing to lose."

        -        Robin Williams

 

"Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity."

       -        Anonymous

 

"Why be prejudice against anyone because of their race or nationality or creed, when there are so many real reasons to hate others?"

       -        Emo Philips

 

"An optimist is someone who believes we live in the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist fears this is so."

        -        Anonymous