When lovely woman stoops to folly, and finds too late that men betray, what charm can soothe her melancholy, what art can wash her guilt away?
— Oliver Goldsmith
Everything that was interesting was outside of Poland. Great music, art, film, hippies, Mick Jagger. It was impossible even to dream of escape. I was convinced as a teen-ager that I would have to spend the rest of my life in this trap.
— Olga Tokarczuk
The person who knows one thing and does it better than anyone else, even if it only be the art of raising lentils, receives the crown he merits. If he raises all his energy to that end, he is a benefactor of mankind and its rewarded as such.
— Og Mandino
For the Chinese, the Greeks, the Mayans, or the Egyptians, nature was a living totality, a creative being. For this reason, art, according to Aristotle, is imitation; the poet imitates the creative gesture of nature.
— Octavio Paz
What distinguishes modern art from the art of other ages is criticism.
You cannot live to please everyone else. You have to edify, educate and fulfill your own dreams and destiny, and hope that whatever your art is that you're putting out there, if it's received, great, I respect you for receiving it. If it's not received, great, I respect you for not.
— Octavia Spencer
As a younger man, I thought the best thing art could do was to challenge people's mindsets, and I still do, but I've come round to the value of entertainment. A show like 'The Interceptor,' which gives the audience that release, after a hard day, of just sitting down and enjoying themselves - that adds value to lives, too.
— O. T. Fagbenle
Historically and culturally, New York City and our entire nation simply would not be the same without the infusion of Asian traditions. Whether it is food, art, language or any other facet of cultural life, Asian Americans have made our city and our country stronger and richer.
— Nydia Velazquez
The artist belongs to his work, not the work to the artist.
— Novalis
In our day the conventional element in literature is elaborately disguised by a law of copyright pretending that every work of art is an invention distinctive enough to be patented.
— Northrop Frye
I did a film called 'Floating' early on that had a scene which was similar to a real-life situation I was in at the time. It involved me having a conversation with my father, who was dying. It was close to home and it made me realise acting wasn't just making faces for the cameras, it was a real art form.
— Norman Reedus
In any art movement, the art has to move into a new phase - a filmmaker has a desire to make a film that is not like a previous film.
— Norman McLaren
Every mind which has given itself to self-expression in art is aware of a directing agency outside its conscious control which it has agreed to label 'inspiration'.
— Norman Lindsay
I wanted to show the community you can build something here without having to raid taxpayers' dollars. What better way to show the community what we're all about, as a welcome to come to the Institute of Contemporary Art and be a part of what we're doing here?
— Norman Braman
I will not restrict myself. I want to do films and TV: both mediums are amazing to reach to the audience and express your art form, and if both are available, then why not exploit them?
— Nora Fatehi
I went to Maryland Institute College of Art, and I studied illustration there.
— Noelle Stevenson
I don't think we live in those times when great art comes out of great adversity.
— Noel Gallagher
Be not affronted at a joke. If one throw salt at thee, thou wilt receive no harm, unless thou art raw.
There are two different kinds of spectacular fighters. One is a subtle counter puncher who shows the work like chess. It's kind of an art, sports art. The other kind is when a guy has blood on all his body. That's a second kind of spectacular fighter, and people enjoy both. Both kind of fighters need to be respected.
— Oleksandr Usyk
While I recognize the necessity for a basis of observed reality... true art lies in a reality that is felt.
— Odilon Redon
Art for Duchamp, all the arts, obey the same law: meta-irony is inherent in their very spirit. It is an irony that destroys its own negation and, hence, returns in the affirmative.
Art is an invention of aesthetics, which in turn is an invention of philosophers... What we call art is a game.
Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.
— Octavia E. Butler
Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man's starving!
— O. Henry
I think art is a healing force, and if we give in to the joy that can be found in art, then we are able to sustain ourselves in spite of ourselves.
— Ntozake Shange
There are so many awful things in this world, but I wanted readers to share with me the small, beautiful, enjoyable things. Things like cute clothes, beautiful art and pretty flowers; items that are overflowing with beauty. If you just become obsessed with your own problems, you miss these things. When you discover them, you become happy.
— Novala Takemoto
Everyone in those days expected that art students were wild, licentious characters. We didn't know how to be, but we sure were anxious to learn.
— Norman Rockwell
The good moral work of art should have all the qualities that a good amoral work of art should have, such as formal unity, balance, contrast, and a sensitivity to the material out of which it is made.
Animation is not the art of drawings that move but the art of movements that are drawn.
I don't think that jazz, as any kind of an art form, has any permanence attached to it, apart from the practitioners of it.
— Norman Granz
Most collectors I know don't think of art as a business or as an investment.
I had a vision of bringing two cultures together, and I have said this in the past: my goal is to bring Morocco and India together through music and art.
I think art maybe has just become very consumer-oriented, and maybe it's always been that way because it is a business.
— Noel Wells
When I was at art college, a can of Spray Mount adhesive cost £12: £2 more than my weekly food bill.
— Noel Fielding
Some persons never attain to the happy art of perspicuous expression, and it is equally true that some persons, thro' a mental defect of their own, will judge the most correct and certain language of others to be indefinite and ambiguous.
— Oliver Ellsworth
I don't know a single collector or museum director who says: 'Oh, he's on a list, so I think I'll buy something of his.' The people who buy my art put a little more thought into it than that.
— Olafur Eliasson
The work of art is always unfaithful to its creator... Art lays at a higher level; it says something more, and almost always, it says something different from what the artist wanted to say.
The modern tradition is the tradition of revolt. The French Revolution is still our model today: history is violent change, and this change goes by the name of progress. I do not know whether these notions really apply to art.
There is so much art can do to enlighten people, no matter what their views might be. If art can't go there or doesn't elevate the social consciousness in some way, then we are in peril.
I've always had an explorative drive to my art, as opposed to wanting to achieve some certain goal.
When one loves one's Art no service seems too hard.
Art gives us the opportunity to have clarity as well as hope that we might be able to survive a situation, or hope that we can find a way out of it without too much more injury to ourselves.
I love and collect contemporary art and go to all the art fairs. I love Damien Hirst and Matthew Barney. I grew up in Italy and had a humanistic education in philosophy and literature - things I love and appreciate. People are richer and more complex than just their day-to-day professional pursuits might suggest.
— Nouriel Roubini
Some people have been kind enough to call me a fine artist. I've always called myself an illustrator. I'm not sure what the difference is. All I know is that whatever type of work I do, I try to give it my very best. Art has been my life.
The process of art evolving is always one which has fascinated me.
The final purpose of art is to intensify, even, if necessary, to exacerbate, the moral consciousness of people.
— Norman Mailer
There's a snobbery at work in architecture. The subject is too often treated as a fine art, delicately wrapped in mumbo-jumbo. In reality, it's an all-embracing discipline taking in science, art, maths, engineering, climate, nature, politics, economics.
— Norman Foster
Success and the art of making music are two different things for me.
— Norah Jones
It was definitely a very appealing prospect to be in a company, especially as an art student: we had it hammered into us that the odds of us finding a job, especially fresh out of school, was very slim, and we could expect to work as a bartender for the next three years after we graduate.
Under Thatcher, who ruled us with an iron rod, great art was made. Amazing designers and musicians. Acid house was born. Very colourful and progressive.
