Stay Creative: 55 Inspiring Quotes For Artists

As an artist, it's easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day grind and lose sight of your passion.

If you're feeling stuck, uninspired, or just need a little push to get back on track, we've got you covered.

Get your motivation back with the help of these creators' wisdom and insight!

Here are 55 quotes from some of history's most celebrated artists to help jump start your creativity.

1) "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." - Maya Angelou

2) "You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have." - Maya Angelou

3) "The world is but a canvas to the imagination." - Henry David Thoreau

4) "Creativity takes courage." - Henri Matisse

5) "I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it." - Pablo Picasso

6) "Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." - Pablo Picasso

7) "If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing." - Marc Chagall

8) "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." - Pablo Picasso

9) "Art is not what you see, but what you make others see." - Edgar Degas

10) "I dream my painting and then I paint my dream." - Vincent Van Gogh

11) “If one can stick to one’s goal with tenacity and without any particular talent that will suffice.” - Wassily Kandinsky

12) “Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.” – Erich Fromm

13) “You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

14) “An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.” – Charles Horton Cooley

15) “Art is not a copy of the real world. One of the damn things is enough.” – Andy Warhol

16) “Creating art is how we preserve our sanity in this insane world we live in.” – Silvia Hartmann

17) “Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.” – Pablo Picasso

18) “A true artist is not one who is inspired but one who inspires others.” – Salvador Dali

19) “If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” – Vincent Van Gogh

20) “Artists are just children who refuse to put down their crayons.” – Al Hirschfeld

21) “Art is not a thing; it is a way.” – Elbert Hubbard

22) “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” – Scott Adams

23) “You can die for an idea, but you can kill yourself trying to put that idea over.” – Irving Thalberg

24) “Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.” – Laurence J. Peter

25) “Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.” – Leo Tolstoy

26) “The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from his subconscious, from half-forgotten memories, from his environment, from all his experience.” – Pablo Picasso

27) “All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.” – Walter Pater

28) “Art will remain the most astonishing activity of mankind born out of struggle between wisdom and madness, between dream and reality in our mind.” – Magdalena Abakanowicz

29) “The artist must create a spark before he can make a fire and before art is born, the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his own creation.” – Auguste Rodin

30) “A picture is worth a thousand words.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

31) “Art ought never to be considered except in its relations with its ideal beauty.” – Alfred de Vigny

32) “Beauty attracts us men; but if, like an arrow, it strikes our heart too forcibly, it wounds us and we lose our life.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

33) “I have always considered art as the ideal prolongation of my senses.” – Eugène Delacroix

34) “Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist.” – René Magritte

35) “For me, Art is the restoration of order. It may discuss all sort of terrible things, but there must be satisfaction at the end. A little bit of hunger, but also satisfaction.” – Toni Morrison

36) “I shut my eyes in order to see.” – Paul Gauguin

37) “I invent nothing, I rediscover.” – Auguste Rodin

38) “There is no must in art because art is free.” – Wassily Kandinsky

39) “Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the search for ideal truth.” – John Ruskin

40) “The artist is not a special kind of person; rather each person is a special kind of artist.” – Anonymous

41) “All art is actually only one thing – the expression of man’s desire to overcome darkness and silence.” – Igor Stravinsky

42) “Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.” – Pablo Picasso

43) “It is not enough to know your craft – you have to have feeling. Science is all very well, but for us imagination is worth far more.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

44) “Every artist was first an amateur.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

45) “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” – Albert Einstein

46) “Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.” – Carl Sagan

47) “There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.” – Gilbert K. Chesterton

48) “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” – Aristotle

49) “Art is the expression of the imagination, not the imitation of reality.” – George Henry Lewes

50) “Art is not a copy of the real world. One of the damn things is enough.” – Edgar Degas

51) “Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth.” – Pablo Picasso

52) “All art is autobiographical. The pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.” – Federico Fellini

53) “I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me.” – Pablo Picasso

54) 54) “It is not enough to know your craft – you have to also have feeling, sincerity, and integrity.” – Denzel Washington

55) “The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.” – Emile Zola

Inspirational Art

Art is a form of expression that allows us to communicate our feelings, thoughts, and experiences. It is a way for us to share our innermost selves with the world.

Art is not simply a copy of reality, but rather a representation of our own emotions and ideas.

It is through art that we can connect with others, and express our deepest thoughts and feelings.

We hope these quotes inspire you as much as they've inspired us!

Stay creative and keep making art!