Famous Quotes & Sayings

Edward Hopper

The question of the value of nationality in art is perhaps unsolvable.

Edward Hopper

One of the weaknesses of much abstract painting is the attempt to substitute the inventions of the intellect for a pristine imaginative conception. The inner life of a human being is a vast and varied realm and does not concern itself alone with stimulating arrangements of color, form and design. The term 'life' as used in art is something not to be held in contempt, for it applies all of its existence, and the province of art is to react to it and not to shun it. Painting will have to deal more fully and less obliquely with life and nature's phenomena before it can again be great.

Edward Hopper

If the technical innovations of the Impressionists led merely to a more accurate representation of nature, it was perhaps of not much value in enlarging their powers of expression.

Edward Hopper

The only quality that endures in art is a personal vision of the world. Methods are transient: personality is enduring.

Edward Hopper

My aim in painting has always been the most exact transcription possible of my most intimate impression of nature.

Edward Hopper

Well, I've always been interested in approaching a big city in a train, and I can't exactly describe the sensations, but they're entirely human and perhaps have nothing to do with aesthetics.

Edward Hopper

I find linseed oil and white lead the most satisfactory mediums.

Edward Hopper

In general it can be said that a nation's art is greatest when it most reflects the character of its people.

Edward Hopper

So many people say painting is fun. I don't find it fun at all. It's hard work for me.

Edward Hopper

Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world.

Edward Hopper

No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination.

Edward Hopper

If you could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.

Edward Hirsch

I have tried to remember throughout that poetry is made by flesh-and-blood human beings. It is a bloody art. It lives on a human scale and thrives when it is passed from hand to hand.

Edward Hirsch

Works of art imitate and provoke other works of art, the process is the source of art itself.

Edward Hirsch

The poet wants justice. And the poet wants art. In poetry we can't have one without the other.

Edward Hirsch

Poetry connects us to what is deepest in ourselves. It gives us access to our own feelings, which are often shadowy, and engages us in the art of making meaning. It widens the space of our inner lives. It is a magical, mysterious, inexplicable (though not incomprehensible) event in language.

Edward Gibbon

The science of the church is neglected for the study of geometry, and they lose sight of Heaven while they are employed in measuring the earth. Euclid is perpetually in their hands. Aristotle and Theophrastus are the objects of their admiration; and they express an uncommon reverence for the works of Galen. Their errors are derived from the abuse of the arts and sciences of the infidels, and they corrupt the simplicity of the gospel by the refinements of human reason.

Edward Gibbon

The active, insatiate principle of self-love can alone supply the arts of life and the wages of industry; and as soon as civil government and exclusive property have been introduced, they become necessary to the existence of the human race.

Edward Gibbon

A warlike nation like the Germans, without either cities, letters, arts, or money, found some compensation for this savage state in the enjoyment of liberty. Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.

Edward Gibbon

If we contrast the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery [gunpowder] with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind.

Edward Gibbon

The Gauls were endowed with all the advantages of art and nature; but as they wanted courage to defend them, they were justly condemned to obey, and even to flatter, the victorious Barbarians, by whose clemency they held their precarious fortunes and their lives.

Edward Gibbon

In this primitive and abject state [of hunters and gatherers], which ill deserves the name of society, the human brute, without arts or laws, almost without sense or language, is poorly distinguished from the rest of the animal creation.

Edward Gibbon

The progress of manufactures and commerce insensibly collects a large multitude within the walls of a city: but these citizens are no longer soldiers; and the arts which adorn and improve the state of civil society, corrupt the habits of the military life.

Edward Gibbon

Agriculture is the foundation of manufactures; since the productions of nature are the materials of art. Under the Roman empire, the labour of an industrious and ingenious people was variously, but incessantly employed, in the service of the rich. In their dress, their table, their houses, and their furniture, the favourites of fortune united every refinement of conveniency, of elegance, and of splendour, whatever could soothe their pride or gratify their sensuality.

Edward Gibbon

There are two very natural propensities which we may distinguish in the most virtuous and liberal dispositions, the love of pleasure and the love of action. If the former is refined by art and learning, improved by the charms of social intercourse, and corrected by a just regard to economy, to health, and to reputation, it is productive of the greatest part of the happiness of private life.

Edward Gibbon

The nations, and the sects, of the Roman world, admitted with equal credulity, and similar abhorrence, the reality of that infernal art [witchcraft], which was able to control the eternal order of the planets, and the voluntary operations of the human mind. . . . They believed, with the wildest inconsistency, that this preternatural dominion of the air, of earth, and of hell, was exercised, from the vilest motives of malice or gain, by some wrinkled hags and itinerant sorcerers, who passed their obscure lives in penury and contempt.

Edward Gibbon

Ignorant of the arts of luxury, the primitive Romans had improved the science of government and war.

Edward Gibbon

Greek is doubtless the most perfect [language] that has been contrived by the art of man.

Edmond de Goncourt

A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world.

Edmond de Goncourt

Surely nothing has to listen to so many stupid remarks as a painting in a museum.

Edith Schaeffer

All art involves conscious discipline. If one is going to paint, do sculpture, design a building or write a book, it will involve discipline in time and energy — or there would never be any production at all to be seen, felt or enjoyed by ourselves or others. To develop ‘Hidden Art’ will also, of course, take time and energy – and the balance of the use of time is a constant individual problem for all of us: what to do, and what to leave undone. One is always having to neglect one thing in order to give precedence to something else. The question is one of priorities

Edith Schaeffer

There are various art forms we may or may not have talent for, may or may not have time for, and we may or may not be able to express ourselves in, but we ought to consider this fact-that whether we choose to be an environment or not, we are. We produce an environment other people have to live in. We should be conscious of the fact that this environment which we produce by our very 'being' can affect the people who live with us or work with us.

Edith Sitwell

the arts are life accelerated and concentrated.