The Quotation IndexThe trusted reference for quotations and the sources behind them
Category Art

Featured Quote in Art

Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Beauty · 1841

Subcategories

Painting (4) Sculpture (0) Architecture (1) Music (0) Theatre (0) Film (1) Photography (0) Design (24)

Art Quotes

“Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Beauty, 1841 · Primary source

“There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrated to some stroke of the imagination.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Beauty, 1841 · Primary source

“Beauty is the quality which makes to endure.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Beauty, 1841 · Primary source

“Art is a jealous mistress, and, if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture, or philosophy, he makes a bad husband, and an ill provider.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Wealth, 1860 · Primary source

“Relative judgements have no place in art.”

Alan Kay · Alan Kay’s talk at Creative Think seminar, 1982 · Secondary source

“I don’t intend to build in order to have clients. I intend to have clients in order to build.”

Ayn Rand · The Fountainhead, 1943 · Primary source

“I’ve been banging away at this thing for 30 years. I think, I think the simple math is some projects work and some don’t and there’s no reason to belabor either one. Just get on to the next and keep telling stories.”

Brad Pitt · 2020 Screen Actors Guild Acceptance Speech, 2020 · Primary source

“The whole scene, the empty beach, the green and blue sea, the naked girl with the strands of fair hair, reminded Bond of something. He searched his mind. Yes, she was Botticelli’s Venus, seen from behind.”

Ian Fleming · Dr. No, 1958 · Primary source

“Happy are the painters, for they shall not be lonely. Light and colour, peace and hope, will keep them company to the end, or almost to the end, of the day.”

Winston Churchill · Painting as a Pastime, 1948 · Primary source

“Painting is a companion with whom one may hope to walk a great part of life’s journey.”

Winston Churchill · Painting as a Pastime, 1948 · Primary source

“We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous parts; which exactly answers its ends; which stands related to all things; which is the mean of many extremes. It is the most enduring quality and the most ascending quality.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Beauty, 1841 · Primary source

“In all design, art lies in making your object prominent, but there is a prior art in choosing objects that are prominent.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Beauty, 1841 · Primary source

“Painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is a painting which is heard but not seen.”

Leonardo da Vinci · No reliable source

“Final advice: content over form, go for fun.”

Alan Kay · Alan Kay’s talk at Creative Think seminar, 1982 · Secondary source

“Good design is as little as possible. Less, but better, because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.”

Dieter Rams · No reliable source

“Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s this veneer—that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That‘s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

Steve Jobs · The Guts of a new Machine, 2003 · Secondary source

“It was for beauty that the world was made.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Beauty, 1841 · Primary source

“I once said that my aim is to leave out everything superfluous in order to allow the essential to come through.”

Dieter Rams · Less but better, 1995 · Primary source

“Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Beauty, 1841 · Primary source

“It goes without saying that we live with Vitsoe furniture systems; first, because I have only ever designed furniture that I myself would like to have, and second, getting to know the systems in daily use allows me to better recognise where they might be improved or developed further.”

Dieter Rams · Less but better, 1995 · Primary source

“Go out into the sunlight and be happy with what you see.”

Winston Churchill · Painting as a Pastime, 1948 · Primary source

“But genius always looks forward. The eyes of man are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead. Man hopes. Genius creates. To create—to create—is the proof of a divine presence.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · The American Scholar, 1837 · Primary source

“Beauty is the form under which the intellect prefers to study the world.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Beauty, 1841 · Primary source

“Colour was always used extremely sparingly [in Braun hi-fi appliances] and then only to provide information.”

Dieter Rams · Less but better, 1995 · Primary source

“My aim was to design [door] handles that were as simple as possible. Our living environment today is complex and polymorphic enough. I have always striven to couteract this chaos.”

Dieter Rams · Less but better, 1995 · Primary source

“That Beauty is the normal state, is shown by the perpetual effort of Nature to attain it.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Beauty, 1841 · Primary source

“A record player, a kitchen appliance, a slide projector or a shaver with disorderly, chaotic, confusing or overloaded design cannot fulfil its functions. The harmony of a design too, its aesthetic quality, also has a functional purpose—it facilitates a positive emotional relationship between a device and its user.”

Dieter Rams · Less but better, 1995 · Primary source

“If a man has failed, you will find he has dreamed instead of working. There is no way to success in our art, but to take off your coat, grind paint, and work like a digger on the railroad, all day and every day.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Power, 1860 · Primary source

“There’s actually very little distinction between an artist and a scientist or engineer of the highest calibre.”

Steve Jobs · Smithsonian Oral and Video Histories: Steve Jobs, 1995 · Primary source

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

Leonardo da Vinci · No reliable source

Explore the category

Art

8 subcategories · 7 authors · 7 works · 59 themes · 105 tags
Authors
Winston Churchill British prime ministerRalph Waldo Emerson American essayist and philosopherLeonardo da Vinci Renaissance artist and inventor
Works
Painting as a Pastime Winston Churchill · 1948Dr. No Ian Fleming · 1958Wealth Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1860
Themes
Reduction to essentialsGrace completes beautyAppearance requires expressive appeal
Tags
BeautySimplicityProduct designAesthetics
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