Paul Gauguin

"Art is either plagiarism or revolution."

- Paul Gauguin, artist

Patrick Kavanagh

"We must record love's mystery without claptrap,
Snatch out of time the passionate transitory"

- 'The Hospital' by Patrick Kavanagh

Ambrose Bierce

"Painting: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic."

- "The Devil's Dictionary" by Ambrose Bierce, journalist, author and satirist

Amy Lowell

"Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in."

- Amy Lowell, poet

Andy Warhol

"Art is anything you can get away with."

- Andy Warhol, artist

Scott Adams

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."

- Scott Adams, cartoonist

George Bernard Shaw

"Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable."

- George Bernard Shaw, critic and playwright

Patrick Kavanagh

"Homer's ghost came whispering to my mind
He said: I made the Iliad from such
A local row. Gods make their own importance."

- 'Epic' by Patrick Kavanagh

Kavanagh wrote this poem discussing a "local row" as he calls it, between two Irish farmers in a rural area, arguing over a tiny piece of land, each declaring it their own. Kavanagh compares it to the "Munich bother", i.e. the 1938 Munich conference and concludes that art is made great not by the subject matter, but by the artist, thus the somewhat arrogant reference to himself as one of the "Gods" of literature. Despite that, I like the idea of making your own importance, (even if we all might not be considered "Gods" by Kavanagh!), forging your own path. You can make your mark on the world even if what you have to say might not seem significant.

Seneca

"All art is an imitation of nature."

- Seneca, ancient Roman orator and writer

Ovid

"When I was from Cupid's passions free, my Muse was mute and wrote no elegy."

- Ovid, ancient Roman poet

Mae West

“Love isn't an emotion or an instinct - it's an art.”

- Mae West, actor and playwright

Magdalena Abakanowicz

"Art does not solve problems but makes us aware of their existence. It opens our eyes to see and our brain to imagine."

- Magdalena Abakanowicz, sculptor

Alexander Pope

"All nature is but art unknown to thee"

- Alexander Pope, poet

Thomas Merton

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”

- Thomas Merton, monk