Artistic Temperment Quotes

Nine tenths of the ills from which intelligent people suffer spring from their intellect. They need at least a doctor who understands the disease. How can you expect Cottard to be able to treat you? He has made allowances for the difficulty of digesting sauces, for gastric trouble, but he has made no allowance for the effect of reading Shakespeare. ~ Marcel Proust

He was very much a man of moods, possibly owing to what is styled the artistic temperment. I have never seen, myself, why the possession of artistic ability should be supposed to excuse a man from a decent exercise of self-control. ~ Agatha Christie

Most campaigns rely on photographs because the moment you do something that is a graphic interpretation where any artistic license has been taken, I think a lot of people are scared that it's going to be perceived as propaganda. ~ Shepard Fairey

What happened to you?" she asked.
"Ben was feeling artistic. Wanted to rearrange my face. ~ Stacey Kade

I was writing a story, 'The Artistic Career of Corky,' about two young men, Bertie Wooster and his friend Corky, getting into a lot of trouble, and neither of them had brains enough to get out of the trouble. I thought: Well, how can I get them out? And I thought: Suppose one of them had an omniscient valet? ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Is being burnt a requisite for the making of art? Personally, I don't think it is. But art is poultice for a burn. It is a privilege to have, somewhere within you, a capacity for making something speak from your own seared experience. ~ Molly Peacock

The tea-masters held that real appreciation of art is only possible to those who make of it a living influence. Thus they sought to regulate their daily life by the high standard of refinement which obtained in the tea-room. In all circumstances serenity of mind should be maintained, and conversation should be conducted as never to mar the harmony of the surroundings. The cut and color of the dress, the poise of the body, and the manner of walking could all be made expressions of artistic personality. These were matters not to be lightly ignored, for until one has made himself beautiful he has no right to approach beauty. Thus the tea-master strove to be something more than the artist, - art itself. ~ Okakura Kakuzo

The latest literary discussions reflect a struggle between two artistic methods - romanticism and realism, with the latter clearly ascendant for the time being. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

First-person narrators is the way I know how to write a book with the greatest power and chance of artistic success. ~ Anne Rice

The sociability of artists is a paradoxical and precarious thing, and ceases the instant they begin their actual artistic work. ~ Robin G. Collingwood

My mother was an artist, and I was fairly good at art as a child. I was always the best drawer in class, except in second grade when an artistic genius passed through our school! ~ Natalie Babbitt

I think it enriches you as a scientist to be able to see things in an artistic perspective and as an artist to see things in a scientific perspective. ~ Masi Oka

The satisfaction of physical needs is indeed the indispensable pre-condition of a satisfactory existence, but in itself it is not enough. In order to be content, men must also have the possibility of developing their intellectual and artistic powers to whatever extent accords with their personal characteristics and abilities. ~ Albert Einstein

At no point have I yet found artistic truth and theological truth at variance. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

Some books seem to have been written, not to teach us anything, but to let us know that the author has known something. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

In a personal way, to do with family and the father-son relationship, in a kind of artistic way with regard to him being an art student. I also studied the visual arts at Lancaster University. I then decided to become an actor as he was becoming a musician. And then as an actor/performer, we have similar sort of interests - music hall and that whole world. So, there's a lot that I felt connected with. ~ Andy Serkis

The word 'art' interests me very much. If it comes from Sanskrit, as I've heard, it signifies 'making.' Now everyone makes something, and those who make things on a canvas with a frame, they're called artists. Formerly, they were called craftsmen, a term I prefer. We're all craftsmen, in civilian or military or artistic life. ~ Marcel Duchamp

In Utero is a testament to the artistic vision of Kurt Cobain. It's kind of a weird record, and it's strangely beautiful at the same time. And if you look at Kurt's paintings and his drawings - he even did a sculpture for me - it's a rising, tortured-spirit person. It's kind of weird. It's done well, but it's like what Dave was saying about having your own sound. Kurt was a great songwriter. He knew he had a good ear for a hook [and was] a great singer, great guitar player, and In Utero is a good representation of what he liked in art and how he expressed himself. ~ Krist Novoselic

If you are living a life that feels right to you, if you're willing to take creative chances or a creative path that feels like it's mostly in keeping with your sensibilities, you know, aesthetic and artistic, then that's what matters. ~ Tracy Chapman

Vorobyaninov, I've got a pressing artistic task for you,' he whispered. 'Go over to the exit from the first-class hallway and stand there. If somebody approaches, start singing, loudly.'
The old man was taken aback. 'But what should I sing?'
'Not "God Save the Tsar," that's for sure! ~ Ilya Ilf

I wrote mostly about men. I hadn't interviewed a lot of women. Whenever I did, the stories were always about the struggle to be the kind of woman who got interviewed - the writers who were counted out, the politicians who were mistaken for secretaries, the actresses who were told they were too fat and tall and short and skinny and ugly and pretty. It was all the same story, which is not to say it wasn't important. But it was boring. The first time I interviewed a man, I understood we were talking about something more like the soul.

The men hadn't had any external troubles. They didn't have a fear that they didn't belong. They hadn't had any obstacles. They were born knowing they belonged, and they were reassured at every turn just in case they'd forgotten. But they were still creative and still people, and so they reached for problems out of an artistic sense of yearning. Their problems weren't real. They had no identity struggle, no illness, no money fears. Instead, they had found the true stuff of their souls - of all our souls - the wound lying beneath all the survivalism and circumstance. pg 233 ~ Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Damien Hirst is acceptable because he's a brand. It's like buying a Porche. Hardline conservatives will never accept it, others think it's a massive waste of money but most will just shrug and move on ~ Qatar Cultural Official

I make my films because I'm affected by a situation, by something that makes me want to reflect on it, that lends itself to an artistic reflection. I always aim to look directly at what I'm dealing with. I think it's a task of dramatic art to confront us with things that in the entertainment industry are usually swept under the rug. ~ Michael Haneke

I got into the music business thinking it was really radical, that it wasn't really a business at all, that it was a lot of people being artistic and creative. Not true, and it made me very
depressed. ~ Thom Yorke

When I was 10, my parents really valued success in the arts, and I thought if I was a famous 'something artistic,' that they would love me more. ~ Sia Furler

The Steinway piano is the most harmonious implement for musical intention. It completes what is beautiful and artistic. ~ Yefim Bronfman

On many days my primary artistic struggle is, in fact, photography because it is harder to do good work with that. I see myself as an observer of the world who has a strong drive to testify, which I can do because I have the privilege of living in New York with enough food to eat and shelter. ~ Teju Cole

Here and there, in some older houses, old faded daguerreotypes still hang on the walls ... They seem to us to be very simple ... compared with the artistic and skillful portraits made in later days ... Here was a photograph that at one time had been the last word, a very modern portrait ... Today it is just a part of cultural history. The small yellowed surface has acquired depth, an admonishing perspective. We hold in our hand a symbol of the structure and ideology of an epoch. ~ Isak Dinesen

At the back of our brains, so to speak, there was a forgotten blaze or burst of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life was to dig for this submerged sunrise of wonder. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Mitchell Maxwell's Maxims
•You have to create your own professional path. There's no longer a roadmap for an artistic career.
•Follow your heart and the money will follow.
•Create a benchmark of your own progress. If you never look down while you're climbing the ladder you won't know how far you've come.
•Don't define success by net worth, define it by character. Success, as it's measured by society, is a fleeting condition.
•Affirm your value. Tell the world "I am an artist," not "I want to be an artist."
•You must actively live your dream. Wishing and hoping for someday doesn't make it happen. Get out there and get involved.
•When you look into the abyss you find your character.
•Young people too often let the fear of failure keep them from trying. You have to get bloody, sweaty and rejected in order to succeed.
•Get your face out of Facebook and into somebody's face. Close your e-mail and pick up the phone. Personal contact still speaks loudest.
•No one is entitled to act entitled. Be willing to work hard.
•If you're going to buck the norm you're going to have to embrace the challenges.
•You have to love the journey if you're going to work in the arts.
•Only listen to people who agree with your vision.
•A little anxiety is good but don't let it become fear, fear makes you inert.
•Find your own unique voice. Leave your individual imprint on the world, not a copy of someone else.
•Draw strength ~ Mitchell Maxwell

I firmly believe in and support everyone's right to freedom of artistic expression. STEEL MAGNOLIAS is my artistic expression, and it is my right to say that its female characters be portrayed by women. The concept of a play set in a beauty parlor where men portray women is a terrific idea. If that is someone's artistic expression, I encourage them to write their own play as soon as possible. ~ Robert Harling

Both revelation and delusion are attempts at the solution of problems. Artists and scientists realize that no solution is ever final, but that each new creative step points the way to the next artistic or scientific problem. In contrast, those who embrace religious revelations and delusional systems tend to see them as unshakeable and permanent ... Religious faith is an answer to the problem of life ... The majority of mankind want or need some all-embracing belief system which purports to provide an answer to life's mysteries, and are not necessarily dismayed by the discovery that their belief system, which they proclaim as "the truth," is incompatible with the beliefs of other people. One man's faith is another man's delusion ... Whether a belief is considered to be a delusion or not depends partly upon the intensity with which it is defended, and partly upon the numbers of people subscribing to it.* ANTHONY STORR, FEET OF CLAY ~ Jon Krakauer

A Classical style ... is the syllogism of art, the only legitimate process from one world to another. Classicism is not the manner of any fixed age or of any fixed country; it is a constant state of the artistic mind. It is a temper of security and satisfaction and patience. ~ James Joyce

I am not one to equate dress size and artistic performance. ~ Jessye Norman

All of us have read the stories about young people in Hollywood and all the challenges they have to confront there, and I think that artistically, I really didn't understand the commercial side of the film business, so I went back to a purely artistic setting. ~ Marisa Tomei

Fiat ars – pereat mundus", says Fascism, and, as Marinetti admits, expects war to supply the artistic gratification of a sense perception that has been changed by technology. This is evidently the consummation of "l'art pour l'art." Mankind, which in Homer's time was an object of contemplation for the Olympian gods, now is one for itself. Its self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order. This is the situation of politics which Fascism is rendering aesthetic. Communism responds by politicizing art. ~ Walter Benjamin

Ripples of karmic events are best humbly done in an artistic, significant, unique karmic harvests without any forms of retaliation. ~ Angelica Hopes

On my drive from Salt Lake City to Moab, Utah, I passed an eighteen-wheeler with mud flaps on the rear tires. The flaps were black and featured the silver silhouette of a very statuesque naked woman. I'm sure you've seen this artistic expression in your travels.

I wondered: has this ploy ever worked, like some kind of perverted fishing lure? ~ Jim Flynn

If literary terms were about artistic merit and not the rules of convenience, about achievement and not safety, the term 'realism' would be an honorary one, conferred only on work that actually builds unsentimental reality on the page, that matches the complexity of life with an equally rich arrangement in language. ~ Charles J. Shields