An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.
Charles Horton Cooley

The artist does not illustrate science (but) he frequently responds to the same interests that a scientist does.
Lewis Mumford

An artist is forced by others to paint out of his own free will.
Willem de Kooning

The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the artist puts order into it is a very absurd point of view, I think. All that we can hope for is to put some order into ourselves.
Willem de Kooning

Whatever an artist's personal feelings are, as soon as an artist fills a certain area on the canvas or circumscribes it, he becomes historical. He acts from or upon other artists.
Willem de Kooning

With the pride of the artist, you must blow against the walls of every power that exists the small trumpet of your defiance.
Norman Mailer

An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.
Charles Bukowski

I want to be an artist that everyone can relate to, that's young, happy and fun.
Britney Spears

No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time; it is just that others are behind the times.
Martha Graham

In our life there is a single color, as on an artist's palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love.
Marc Chagall

The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world. In this long vigil he often has to vary his methods of stimulation; but in this long vigil he is also himself striving against a continual tendency to sleep.
Marc Chagall

I do struggle with how much and in which way, as an artist or celebrity, that you voice your political views.
Kevin Bacon

An artist is a man of action, whether he creates a personality, invents an expedient, or finds the issue of a complicated situation.
Joseph Conrad

Everybody's an artist. Everybody's God. It's just that they're inhibited.
Yoko Ono

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone.
James Baldwin

One of the things that makes Wittgenstein a real artist to me is that he realized that no conclusion could be more horrible than solipsism.
David Foster Wallace

Let not a man do what his sense of right bids him not to do, nor desire what it forbids him to desire. This is sufficient. The skillful artist will not alter his measures for the sake of a stupid workman.
Mencius

I'm not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money.
Lord Acton

A movie star is not an artist, he is an art object.
Richard Schickel

The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.
Emile Zola