Famous Quotes & Sayings

Henri Matisse

Impressionism is the newspaper of the soul.

Henri Matisse

A picture must possess a real power to generate light and for a long time now I've been conscious of expressing myself through light or rather in light.

Henri Matisse

Color helps to express light, not the physical phenomenon, but the only light that really exists, that in the artist's brain.

Henri Matisse

I don't paint things. I only paint the difference between things.

Henri Matisse

All that is not useful in a picture is detrimental. A work of art must be harmonious in its entirety; for superfluous details would, in the mind of the beholder, encroach upon the essential elements.

Henri Matisse

An artist must possess Nature. He must identify himself with her rhythm, by efforts that will prepare the mastery which will later enable him to express himself in his own language.

Henri Matisse

It would be a mistake to ascribe this creative power to an inborn talent. In art, the genius creator is not just a gifted being, but a person who has succeeded in arranging for their appointed end, a complex of activities, of which the work is the outcome. The artist begins with a vision — a creative operation requiring an effort. Creativity takes courage.

Henri Matisse

Art should be something like a good armchair in which to rest from physical fatigue.

Henri Matisse

Don't wait for inspiration. It comes while one is working.

Henri Nouwen

Living in a community with very wounded people, I came to see that I had lived most of my life as a tightrope artist trying to walk on a high, thin cable from one tower to the other, always waiting for the applause when I had not fallen off and broken my leg.

Henri Nouwen

Just as people can watch spellbound a circus artist tumbling through the air in a phosphorized costume, so they can listen to a preacher who uses the Word of God to draw attention to himself. But a sensational preacher stimulates the senses and leaves the spirit untouched. Instead of being the way to God, his 'being different' gets in the way.

Henri Nouwen

The soul of the artist cannot remain hidden.

Henri Nouwen

The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark.

Henri Nouwen

Peace is first of all the art of being.

Heinrich Boll

An artist is like a woman who can do nothing but love, and who succumbs to every stray male jackass.

Hedy Lamarr

It is easier for women to succeed in business, the arts, and politics in America than in Europe.

Heidi Julavits

Our cover has always been really important. For those of you who haven’t seen itCharles Burns, who is a graphic artist, does four portraits, so it’s split into quadrants and there’s four heads, basically—portraits of people. We’ve actually often thought and freaked out, what if something happened to Charles Burns? Because he’s so identified with the cover of our magazine, I don’t know what we would do if anything happened to Charles Burns.

Heath Ledger

I do think that drugs and alcohol have been glorified and exoticized in such a way that it gets into the art world.

Hattie McDaniel

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, fellow members of the motion picture industry and honored guests: This is one of the happiest moments of my life, and I want to thank each one of you who had a part in selecting me for one of their awards, for your kindness. It has made me feel very, very humble; and I shall always hold it as a beacon for anything that I may be able to do in the future. I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race and to the motion picture industry. My heart is too full to tell you just how I feel, and may I say thank you and God bless you.

Hippolyte Taine

The more I study the things of the mind the more mathematical I find them. In them as in mathematics it is a question of quantities; they must be treated with precision. I have never had more satisfaction than in proving this in the realms of art, politics and history.

Hippolyte Taine

The production of a work of art is determined by the material and intellectual climate in which a man lives and dies.

Hiroshi Sugimoto

My art has gained some high value.

Hiroshi Sugimoto

Art is technique: a means by which to materialize the invisible realm of the mind.

Hiroshi Sugimoto

Art always helps religion; it became an inseparable phenomenon when human beings gained consciousness.

Hiroshi Sugimoto

Art resides even in things with no artistic intentions.

Hiroshi Sugimoto

The 1,000 Buddha, to me, is almost like a contemporary art piece.

Henry R. Luce

Journalism is the art of collecting varying kinds of information (commonly called news) which a few people possess and of transmitting it to a much larger number of people who are supposed to desire to share it.

Helen McCrory

I was a real art freak when I was a teenager.

Helen Rowland

Flirting is the gentle art of making a man feel pleased with himself.

Helen Mirren

The timing of comedy is so difficult. You've got to leave room for a laugh, you don't want to kill the laugh, but on film, you can't just suddenly stop for a laugh and then carry on. So, I think it's a real art form, comedy on film.

Helen Mirren

I think it's always hard for people to get their head around the fact that populist, commercial films can also actually be great works of art.

Helen Mirren

It'll be the Internet and piracy that will kill film. There's a philosophy that the Internet should be free, but the reality is that piracy will destroy the film industry and film as an art form because it's expensive to make a movie. Maybe you'll have funky little independent movies, and it'll go back and then start up again some other way.

Helen Mirren

I always feel when you work with an artist and whenever I work with a really good photographer, I try to give him or her their own artistic freedom because that's the way you get the best work or at least the most interesting work.