Be Yourself Quotes and Sayings

Be Yourself Quotes

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. ~e.e. cummings, 1955

He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away. ~Raymond Hull

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another. ~William Shakespeare

All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself. ~Ralph Ellison, "Battle Royal"

The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another. ~James Matthew Barrie

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. ~Oscar Wilde, De Profundis, 1905

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else. ~Judy Garland

We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves. ~François VI de la Rochefoucault

If you cannot be a poet, be the poem. ~David Carradine

A man who is "of sound mind" is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key. ~Paul Valéry, Mauvaises pensées et autres, 1942

I am told to just be myself, but as much as I have practiced the impression, I am still no good at it. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. ~e.e. cummings

Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities which he does not possess, and to gain applause which he cannot keep. ~Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, 1750

Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another. ~Homer

How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone. ~Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel

"Be yourself" is about the worst advice you can give some people. ~Tom Masson

I think of life itself now as a wonderful play that I've written for myself, and so my purpose is to have the utmost fun playing my part. ~Shirley MacLaine

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself. ~Harvey Fierstein

Learn to... be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not. ~Henri-Frédéric Amiel

I am much better employed from every point of view, when I live solely for my own satisfaction, than when I begin to worry about the world. The world frightens me, and a frightened man is no good for anything. ~George Gissing

No man can climb out beyond the limitations of his own character. ~John Morley

There is just one life for each of us: our own. ~Euripides

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth. ~Benjamin Disraeli

If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise. ~Johann von Goethe

Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart. ~Confucius

Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be, because sooner or later, if you are posing, you will forget the pose, and then where are you? ~Fanny Brice

 

   

 

Every time you don't follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness. ~Shakti Gawain

At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere. ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Ride the energy of your own unique spirit. Gabrielle Roth

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. ~Steve Jobs

Originality is... a by-product of sincerity. ~Marianne Moore

The strongest force in the universe is a human being living consistently with his identity. ~Tony Robbins

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble. ~Samuel Johnson

If you are ashamed to stand by your colors, you had better seek another flag. ~Author Unknown

It's wonderful when you can bring sparkle into people's lives without fading away from your own true color. Keep the hue in you. ~Dodinsky, www.dodinsky.com

To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up. ~Oscar Wilde

Best be yourself, imperial, plain and true! ~Robert Browning, "Bishop Blougram's Apology," Men and Women

Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness. ~Allen Ginsberg, quoted in On Being a Writer edited by Bill Strickland, from an interview with Michael Schumacher

Don't forget that your spirit-twinkle makes life's rainbow shine bright. ~Terri Guillemets

All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own. ~Johann von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, 1774

When one is pretending the entire body revolts. ~Anaïs Nin

It is not only possible to be the person you pretend to be, but there is less effort involved. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

We are betrayed by what is false within. ~George Meredith

No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth. ~Oscar Wilde

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~Dr. Seuss

My mom always said I liked to stir the pot with a glittering spoon. ~Kris Carr

No creature is fully itself till it is, like the dandelion, opened in the bloom of pure relationship to the sun, the entire living cosmos. ~D.H. Lawrence

Men weary as much of not doing the things they want to do as of doing the things they do not want to do. ~Eric Hoffer

It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is. ~Desiderius Erasmus

Like the sky opens after a rainy day we must open to ourselves.... Learn to love yourself for who you are and open so the world can see you shine. ~James Poland

All the mistakes I make arise from forsaking my own station and trying to see the object from another person's point of view. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Be what you are. This is the first step toward becoming better than you are. ~Julius Charles Hare

We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin. ~André Berthiaume, Contretemps

An unfulfilled vocation drains the color from a man's entire existence. ~Honoré de Balzac, Scènes de la vie Parisienne

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. ~Jim Morrison

Be open. And then the truth follows. ~Gangaji

What I am is good enough if I would only be it openly. ~Carl Rogers

He who travels in search of something which he has not got, travels away from himself and grows old even in youth among old things. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance"

There lurks, perhaps, in every human heart a desire of distinction, which inclines every man first to hope, and then to believe, that Nature has given him something peculiar to himself. ~Samuel Johnson

You must have control of the authorship of your own destiny. The pen that writes your life story must be held in your own hand. ~Irene C. Kassorla

Is life not a hundred times too short for us to stifle ourselves. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

You were born an original. Don't die a copy. ~John Mason

It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are not. ~Andre Gide

There is in a man an upwelling spring of life, energy, love, whatever you like to call it. If a course is not cut for it, it turns the ground round it into a swamp. ~Mark Rutherford (William Hale White), More Pages from a Journal, 1910

Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul. ~Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them. ~François VI de la Rochefoucault

Man would be "otherwise." That's the essence of the specifically human. ~Antonio Machado

Individualism is rather like innocence: There must be something unconscious about it. ~Louis Kronenberger, Company Manners, 1954

Why try to be someone you're not? Life is hard enough without adding impersonation to the skills required. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. ~Kurt Vonnegut

When you dance to your own rhythm,

Life taps its toes to your beat.

~Terri Guillemets

One's real life is often the life that one does not lead. ~Oscar Wilde, L'Envoi to Rose-leaf and Apple-leaf, 1882

The white light streams down to be broken up by those human prisms into all the colors of the rainbow. Take your own color in the pattern and be just that. ~Charles R. Brown

Rabbi Zusya said that on the Day of Judgment, God would ask him, not why he had not been Moses, but why he had not been Zusya. ~Walter Kaufmann

Beauty Quotes and Sayings

Beauty Quotes

Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul. ~Alice Walker

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. ~John Muir

Our hearts are drunk with a beauty our eyes could never see. ~George W. Russell

I’ve never seen a smiling face that was not beautiful. ~Author Unknown

By plucking her petals, you do not gather the beauty of the flower. ~Rabindranath Tagore

Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart. ~Khalil Gibran

Against Him those women sin who torment their skin with potions, stain their cheeks with rouge and extend the line of their eyes with black coloring. Doubtless they are dissatisfied with God’s plastic skill. In their own persons they convict and censure the Artificer of all things. ~Tertullian

That which is striking and beautiful is not always good, but that which is good is always beautiful. ~Ninon de L’Enclos

Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked. ~Ralph Ellison, "Battle Royal"

Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty — they merely move it from their faces into their hearts. ~Martin Buxbaum

Tell them dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,

Then beauty is its own excuse for being

~Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Rhodora"

Close your eyes and see the beauty. ~Author Unknown

It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. ~Leo Tolstoy

In every man’s heart there is a secret nerve that answers to the vibrations of beauty. ~Christopher Morley

Beauty always promises, but never gives anything. ~Simone Weil

What humbugs we are, who pretend to live for Beauty, and never see the Dawn! ~Logan Pearsall Smith

The most beautiful view is the one I share with you. ~Author Unknown

When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other. ~Chinese Proverb

Beauty comes in all sizes, not just size 5. ~Roseanne

I don’t like standard beauty — there is no beauty without strangeness. ~Karl Lagerfeld

There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect. ~Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God’s handwriting — a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Beauty and folly are generally companions. ~Baltasar Gracián, translated from Spanish

May she be granted beauty and yet not

Beauty to make a stranger’s eye distraught,

Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,

Being made beautiful overmuch,

Consider beauty a sufficient end,

Lose natural kindness and maybe

The heart-revealing intimacy

That chooses right, and never find a friend....

~William Butler Yeats, "A Prayer for my Daughter"

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it. ~Confucius

 

   

 

We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous parts; which exactly answers its end; which stands related to all things; which is the mean of many extremes. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Don't let insecurity ruin the beauty you were born with. ~Author Unknown

Plainness has its peculiar temptations quite as much as beauty. ~George Eliot

As we grow old, the beauty steals inward. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

We need beauty because it makes us ache to be worthy of it. ~Mary Oliver

Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. ~Edgar Allan Poe

The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone. ~Johann von Goethe

A woman who cannot be ugly is not beautiful. ~Karl Kraus

Beauty deprived of its proper foils and adjuncts ceases to be enjoyed as beauty, just as light deprived of all shadows ceases to be enjoyed as light. ~John Ruskin

Beauty in the flesh will continue to rule the world. ~Florenz Ziegfeld

Do I love you because you’re beautiful,

Or are you beautiful because I love you?

~Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Cinderella

Beauty without grace is a hook without a bait. ~Ninon de l’Enclos

Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance. ~John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice, 1851

Glamour is a shooting star, it catches your eye, but fades away, beauty is the sun always brilliant day after day. ~Mike Dolan, www.hawaiianlife.com

Beauty is the promise of happiness. ~Stendhal

Beauty, to me, is about being comfortable in your own skin. That, or a kick-ass red lipstick. ~Gwyneth Paltrow

Beauty can be coaxed out of ugliness. ~Dr. SunWolf, professorsunwolf.com

One summer night, out on a flat headland, all but surrounded by the waters of the bay, the horizons were remote and distant rims on the edge of space. Millions of stars blazed in darkness, and on the far shore a few lights burned in cottages. Otherwise there was no reminder of human life. My companion and I were alone with the stars: the misty river of the Milky Way flowing across the sky, the patterns of the constellations standing out bright and clear, a blazing planet low on the horizon. It occurred to me that if this were a sight that could be seen only once in a century, this little headland would be thronged with spectators. But it can be seen many scores of nights in any year, and so the lights burned in the cottages and the inhabitants probably gave not a thought to the beauty overhead; and because they could see it almost any night, perhaps they never will. ~Rachel Carson

Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844

A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books. ~Walt Whitman

No spring nor summer’s beauty hath such grace

As I have seen in one Autumnal face....

~John Donne, "Elegy IX: The Autumnal"

Men and women make their own beauty or their own ugliness. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton speaks in one of his novels of a man "who was uglier than he had any business to be;" and, if we could but read it, every human being carries his life in his face, and is good-looking or the reverse as that life has been good or evil. On our features the fine chisels of thought and emotion are eternally at work. ~Alexander Smith, "An Essay on an Old Subject"

Inner beauty, too, needs occasionally to be told it is beautiful. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

Wisdom is the abstract of the past, but beauty is the promise of the future. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

...[K]now that however ugly the parts appear the whole remains beautiful. A severed hand

Is an ugly thing, and man dissevered from the earth and stars and his history... for contemplation or in fact...

Often appears atrociously ugly. Integrity is wholeness, the greatest beauty is

Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of the universe....

~Robinson Jeffers, from "The Answer"

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day.

For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone....

~Sam Levenson

Beauty... is the shadow of God on the universe. ~Gabriela Mistral, Desolacíon

Beauty... when you look into a woman’s eyes and see what is in her heart. ~Nate Dircks

You can take no credit for beauty at sixteen. But if you are beautiful at sixty, it will be your soul’s own doing. ~Marie Stopes

Beauty — in projection and perceiving — is 99.9% attitude. ~Grey Livingston

Beauty?... To me it is a word without sense because I do not know where its meaning comes from nor where it leads to. ~Pablo Picasso

I’m tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That’s deep enough. What do you want — an adorable pancreas? ~Jean Kerr, The Snake Has All the Lines

Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked. ~Saint Augustine

Taking joy in living is a woman’s best cosmetic. ~Rosalind Russell

I hope you have lost your good looks, for while they last any fool can adore you, and the adoration of fools is bad for the soul. No, give me a ruined complexion and a lost figure and sixteen chins on a farmyard of Crow’s feet and an obvious wig. Then you shall see me coming out strong. ~George Bernard Shaw, to Mrs. Patrick Campbell

Beauty isn’t worth thinking about; what’s important is your mind. You don’t want a fifty-dollar haircut on a fifty-cent head. ~Garrison Keillor

Babies Quotes and Sayings

Babies Quotes

It sometimes happens, even in the best of families, that a baby is born. This is not necessarily cause for alarm. The important thing is to keep your wits about you and borrow some money. ~Elinor Goulding Smith

A baby is an angel whose wings decrease as his legs increase. ~Author Unknown

Babies are always more trouble than you thought — and more wonderful. ~Charles Osgood

Families with babies and families without babies are sorry for each other. ~Ed Howe

In the sheltered simplicity of the first days after a baby is born, one sees again the magical closed circle, the miraculous sense of two people existing only for each other, the tranquil sky reflected on the face of the mother nursing her child. ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea, Chapter IV: Double-Sunrise

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one. ~Leo J. Burke

Babies are such a nice way to start people. ~Don Herrold

Every baby needs a lap. ~Henry Robin

Getting down on all fours and imitating a rhinoceros stops babies from crying. (Put an empty cigarette pack on your nose for a horn and make loud "snort" noises.) I don't know why parents don't do this more often. Usually it makes the kid laugh. Sometimes it sends him into shock. Either way it quiets him down. If you're a parent, acting like a rhino has another advantage. Keep it up until the kid is a teenager and he definitely won't have his friends hanging around your house all the time. ~P.J. O'Rourke

When babies look beyond you and giggle, maybe they're seeing angels. ~Quoted in The Angels' Little Instruction Book by Eileen Elias Freeman, 1994

Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principal one was that they escaped teething. ~Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

A baby is a blank cheque made payable to the human race. ~Barbara Christine Seifert

Before you were born I carried you under my heart. From the moment you arrived in this world until the moment I leave it, I will always carry you in my heart. ~Mandy Harrison

One of the most obvious results of having a baby around the house is to turn two good people into complete idiots who probably wouldn't have been much worse than mere imbeciles without it. ~Georges Courteline, La Philosophie de Georges Courteline

Life is a flame that is always burning itself out, but it catches fire again every time a child is born. ~George Bernard Shaw

People often ask me, "What's the difference between couple hood and babyhood?" In a word? Moisture. Everything in my life is now more moist. Between your spittle, your diapers, your spit-up and drool, you got your baby food, your wipes, your formula, your leaky bottles, sweaty baby backs, and numerous other untraceable sources — all creating an ever-present moistness in my life, which heretofore was mainly dry. ~Paul Reiser

The smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps — does anyone know where it was born? Yes, there is a rumor that a young pale beam of a crescent moon touched the edge of a vanishing autumn cloud, and there the smile was first born in the dream of a dew-washed morning. ~Rabindranath Tagore

Don't ever tell the mother of a newborn that her baby's smile is just gas. ~Jill Woodhull

...a little child, born yesterday,

A thing on mother's milk and kisses fed...

~"Hymn to Mercury" (one of the Homeric Hymns), translated from Greek by Percy Bysshe Shelley

God's interest in the human race is nowhere better evinced than in obstetrics. ~Martin H. Fischer

A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on. ~Carl Sandburg

If you were to open up a baby's head — and I am not for a moment suggesting that you should — you would find nothing but an enormous drool gland. ~Dave Barry

Attitude Quotes and Sayings

Attitude Quotes

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. ~Herm Albright, quoted in Reader's Digest, June 1995

Attitudes are contagious. Are yours worth catching? ~Dennis and Wendy Mannering

Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine. ~Anthony J. D'Angelo, The College Blue Book

If you don't get everything you want, think of the things you don't get that you don't want. ~Oscar Wilde

Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats. ~Voltaire

If you don't think every day is a good day, just try missing one. ~Cavett Robert

It's so hard when I have to, and so easy when I want to. ~Annie Gottlier

Oh, my friend, it's not what they take away from you that counts. It's what you do with what you have left. ~Hubert Humphrey

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. ~Winston Churchill

Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day. ~Author Unknown

There are exactly as many special occasions in life as we choose to celebrate. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and mosquitoes and silly people. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until it gets so ugly you can hardly bear to look at it. A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely. ~Roald Dahl

To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. ~George Santayana

Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same. ~Francesca Reigler

If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it. ~Mary Engelbreit

So often time it happens, we all live our life in chains, and we never even know we have the key. ~The Eagles, "Already Gone"

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts. ~Samuel Johnson

I've decided that the stuff falling through the cracks is confetti and I'm having a party! ~Betsy Cañas Garmon, www.wildthymecreative.com (2009 tweet, @wildthyme)

The only people who find what they are looking for in life are the fault finders. ~Foster's Law

Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures. ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr., Life's Little Instruction Book

Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don't count on harvesting Golden Delicious. ~Bill Meyer

We find things where we look for them, which is why I never look for a golf ball out of bounds. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. ~Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1893

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed. ~Attributed to both Jonathan Swift and Benjamin Franklin

To be upset over what you don't have is to waste what you do have. ~Ken S. Keyes, Jr., Handbook to Higher Consciousness

Defeat is not bitter unless you swallow it. ~Joe Clark

The only disability in life is a bad attitude. ~Scott Hamilton

If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm. ~Vince Lombardi

My riches consist not in the extent of my possessions, but in the fewness of my wants. ~J. Brotherton

There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly. ~Publius Terentius Afer

I don't like that man. I must get to know him better. ~Abraham Lincoln

Just because you're miserable doesn't mean you can't enjoy your life. ~Annette Goodheart

In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer. ~Albert Camus, Lyrical and Critical Essays

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful. ~Buddha

There are no menial jobs, only menial attitudes. ~William J. Bennett, The Book of Virtues

I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow. ~Abraham Lincoln

Being in a good frame of mind helps keep one in the picture of health. ~Author Unknown

Got no checkbooks, got no banks,

Still I'd like to express my thanks -

I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night.

~Irving Berlin, "I Got the Sun in the Morning," 1946

 

   

 

To everyone is given the key to heaven; the same key opens the gates of hell. ~Ancient Proverb

Make your optimism come true. ~Author Unknown

True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander. ~Charles Caleb Colton

To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it. ~Confucius

Learn to smile at every situation. See it as an opportunity to prove your strength and ability. ~Joe Brown

Why aren't you dancing with joy at this very moment? is the only relevant spiritual question. ~Vilayat Khan

I don't think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains. ~Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

You can bear your troubles or shrug them off. They're your shoulders. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

The best things in life are unexpected — because there were no expectations. ~Eli Khamarov, Surviving on Planet Reebok

The only difference between a good day and a bad day is your attitude. ~Dennis S. Brown

Oft expectation fails, and most oft there

Where most it promises.

~William Shakespeare

Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us. ~Stephen Covey

If you have nothing to be grateful for check your pulse. ~Author Unknown

Affectation is a greater enemy to the face than smallpox. ~English Proverb

Say you are well, or all is well with you,

And God shall hear your words and make them true.

~Ella Wheeler Wilcox

No power in society, no hardship in your condition can depress you, keep you down, in knowledge, power, virtue, influence, but by your own consent. ~William Ellery Channing, 1838

A person will sometimes devote all his life to the development of one part of his body — the wishbone. ~Robert Frost

If we shall take the good we find, asking no questions, we shall have heaping measures. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

You can't stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf. ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

Staying positive is one of the hardest fights, though I'm happy I'm in it. ~Daniel, @blindedpoet

A strong positive mental attitude will create more miracles than any wonder drug. ~Patricia Neal

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes. ~William James

Change your thoughts and you change your world. ~Norman Vincent Peale

Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose — a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. ~Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein, 1818

When you feel dog tired at night, it may be because you've growled all day long. ~Author Unknown

A friend will remind you that assumptions born of malice are better dealt with by gleefully sticking your tongue out. ~Dodinsky, www.dodinsky.com

What is possible? What you will. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827

Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different. ~Katherine Mansfield

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

Let me enjoy the earth no less

Because the all-enacting Might

Which fashioned forth its loveliness

Had other aims than my delight.

~Thomas Hardy, Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses, 1909

Whenever you fall, pick something up. ~Oswald Avery

My joy may be diminished now, but I am still alive to be more joyful ahead. ~Ankam Nithin Kumar

Success is due less to ability than to zeal. ~Charles Buxton

My father's nature turned out no waste product; he had none of that useless stuff in him that lies in heaps near factories. He took his own happiness with him. ~Margot Asquith

Anywhere is paradise; it's up to you. ~Author Unknown

We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them. ~Elbert Hubbard

If my resolution to be a great man was half so strong as it is to despise the shame of being a little one... ~William Cowper

Let your inner sunshine overcome the passing haze of discontent. ~Dodinsky, www.dodinsky.com

I think, what has this day brought me, and what have I given it? ~Henry Moore

When life is viewed as good, a bad day is easily absorbed. ~Attributed to Neil Maxwell

Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it. ~René Descartes

Up is not an easy direction. It defies gravity, both cultural and magnetic. ~Mike Abrashoff

I wish I was a glow worm,

A glow worm's never glum.

'Cos how can you be grumpy

When the sun shines out your bum!

~Author Unknown

We plant seeds that will flower as results in our lives, so best to remove the weeds of anger, avarice, envy and doubt, that peace and abundance may manifest for all. ~Dorothy Day

Sometimes life's Hell. But hey! Whatever gets the marshmallows toasty. ~J. Andrew Helt

I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else. ~Winston Churchill

You're not going to make me have a bad day. If there's oxygen on earth and I'm breathing, it's going to be a good day. ~Cotton Fitzsimmons

If the sky falls, hold up your hands. ~Author Unknown

[W]hat counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight — it's the size of the fight in the dog. ~Dwight Eisenhower, address to Republican National Committee, 31 January 1958, also sometimes attributed to Mark Twain (unverified)

Two people can have a middling day, but one rounds up and the other rounds down. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. ~Betty Smith

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune. ~Walt Whitman

No life is so hard that you can't make it easier by the way you take it. ~Ellen Glasgow

I have learned to use the word impossible with the greatest caution. ~Wernher von Braun

Where the loser saw barriers, the winner saw hurdles. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. ~F. Scott Fitzgerald

I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet. ~Mahatma Gandhi

Anyone who doesn't believe in miracles is not a realist. ~David Ben-Gurion

There's a saying among prospectors: "Go out looking for one thing, and that's all you'll ever find." ~Robert Flaherty

I've got dreams in hidden places and extra smiles for when I'm blue. ~Author Unknown

The soul does not absorb negativity by accident, always by choice. ~Dodinsky, www.dodinsky.com

The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it. ~C.C. Scott

Give goodness to the day and before you know it, the day will be giving goodness to you. ~Terri Guillemets

I am a little deaf, a little blind, a little impotent, and on top of this are two or three abominable infirmities, but nothing destroys my hope. ~Voltaire

If you can wear the hard times of your life as furrows on your brow, you can wear the good times as a twinkle in your eye. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

The excursion is the same when you go looking for your sorrow as when you go looking for your joy. ~Eudora Welty

Being a sex symbol has to do with an attitude, not looks. Most men think it's looks, most women know otherwise. ~Kathleen Turner

If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of becoming a prophet. ~Isaac Bashevis Singer

Too many people miss the silver lining because they're expecting gold. ~Maurice Setter

Grow antennae, not horns. ~James Angell

Rain, after all is only rain; it is not bad weather. So also, pain is only pain; unless we resist it, then it becomes torment. ~I Ching

Your positivity can become a castle around you which will protect you from the arrow of negativity. ~Gurudev Shree Chitrabhanu

We cannot direct the wind but we can adjust the sails. ~Author Unknown

Count your joys instead of your woes;

Count your friends instead of your foes.

~Irish Saying

Dwell not upon thy weariness, thy strength shall be according to the measure of thy desire. ~Arab Proverb

Negative thinking destroys your brain cells and causes global warming. Source: The Scientific Institute of GetOverIt! ~Dodinsky, www.dodinsky.com

The block of granite which was an obstacle in the pathway of the weak, became a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong. ~Thomas Carlyle

Misery is a communicable disease. ~Martha Graham

A car can't operate without the mechanical systems working, but it can operate with a few dents and scratches..., you are the same. ~Mike Dolan, www.hawaiianlife.com

The world is full of cactus, but we don't have to sit on it. ~Will Foley

Optimist: someone who isn't sure whether life is a tragedy or a comedy but is tickled silly just to be in the play. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

If you have the will to win, you have achieved half your success; if you don't, you have achieved half your failure. ~David Ambrose

Be the light in the dark, be the calm in the storm and be at peace while at war. ~Mike Dolan, www.hawaiianlife.com

If the skies fall, one may hope to catch larks. ~Francis Rabelais

For my part I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance. ~Adlai Stevenson

A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes. ~Hugh Downs

A nasty day! A nasty day!

'Twas thus I heard a critic say

Because the skies were bleak and gray—

And yet it somehow seemed to me

The day was all that it should be.

I looked it very closely o'er;

Its hours still were twenty-four,

With sixty minutes each—no less—

For deeds of good and helpfulness;

And every second full of chance

To give the day significance;

And every hour full of growth

For everybody but the sloth—

I couldn't see it quite that way,

For though the skies were bleak and gray

The day itself, it seemed to me,

Was all a day could rightly be.

~John Kendrick Bangs (1862-1922), "A Protest" (February Fourteenth), The Cheery Way: A Bit of Verse For Every Day, 1920

Very often a change of self is needed more than a change of scene. ~Arthur Christopher Benson

Leroy bet me I couldn't find a pot of gold at the end, and I told him that was a stupid bet because the rainbow was enough. ~Rita Mae Brown

The best way to dispel negative thoughts is to require that they have a purpose. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

Let us try to see things from their better side:

You complain about seeing thorny rose bushes;

Me, I rejoice and give thanks to the gods

That thorns have roses.

~Quoted by Alphonse Karr, see quoteinvestigator.com/2013/11/16/rose-thorn

I like the man who takes the stones

Upon his rocky road

With smiling lips instead of groans,

Whate'er his heavy load

Who seizes each as on he goes,

And neatly crumbles it,

And turns his share of pebbly woes

To stores of inner grit.

~John Kendrick Bangs (1862-1922), "Transformation" (February Fifteenth), The Cheery Way: A Bit of Verse For Every Day, 1920

If you call a thing bad you do little, if you call a thing good you do much. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

This is the best day the world has ever seen; tomorrow will be better. ~R.A. Campbell, quoted in Journal of Education, vol. 81, Boston University, 1915

The Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, but a state of mind. ~John Burroughs

Even when the future's not certain, our hearts can still be certain — of love and happiness and all that's good. ~Terri Guillemets

Care not what they say about the color of your skin let the brilliant light of your soul blind them. ~Mike Dolan, www.hawaiianlife.com

Every day is a new opportunity to be grateful, and enjoy the world, and improve it — in our own little ways. ~Terri Guillemets

When it rains, it pours. You decide what comes down. ~Justin Uyehara

The real "it is well" is something I say from the ground, having fallen. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb

Reach for the stars, even if you have to stand on a cactus. ~Susan Longacre

I not only bow to the inevitable; I am fortified by it. ~Thornton Wilder

Terri GuillemetsInspiration, Healing, Warm & Fuzzy

You are my happy.Life is too short. jayroeder.comBlackbird singing in the dead of night take these sunken eyes and learn to see All your life You were only waiting for this moment to be free"Land's End" by nidhifocuscomforting porch with a viewjoyousyou never know"What it takes" by nidhiBird Art print inspirational art - Spread your wings by SusanaTavares"Bear Necessities" by nidhiMay your dreaming be the journey.Dance. Always, anywhere, everywhere. In your heart, mostly.Chin up, homey | jayroeder.comopening up to the sunUnicornDancing is not getting up any time painlessly                                              like a speck of dust blown around in the wind.                                               Dancing is when you rise above both worlds,                                               tearing your Heart to pieces and giving up your Soul. ~RumiLife is not happening to you. Life is responding to you.Once you connect with yourself, it is impossible to be lonely or desperate. — Bryant McGillbalance and exploration | lifeyour authentic selflooking upThis moment is your life.Love is in the Air - Jump #67 of #100 by Olivia Bell on Flickrbeinglightgrace and passionwalking in the raina whoa kiss!Don't quit your daydream!romanceWake up  be awesome | jayroeder.comLaughter by Dr Lindy on FlickrStranger #7 by Joep R. on FlickrSlide staircase. Yes!loverelaxation in greenRiver Road Railside Cottage by Yvonne RobertsWhatever you are be a good one | jayroeder.comBurning Copper by cuppyuppycake on FlickrDancing in the rain....Gilbert Williams Art Celestial | The Healing TempleI love the smell right before it rains too…free!universal energyrunning to daddyLive in the moment.Live in the moment.Waterfall Castle in PolandI am Hugging You from right Here - 11 x 14 print | HeartBoxStudio by Christina Vagenius

See On

May I never miss a sunset or a rainbow because I am looking down. ~Sara June Parker

I never really look for anything. What God throws my way comes. I wake up in the morning and whichever way God turns my feet, I go. ~Pearl Bailey

Men who never get carried away should be. ~Malcolm Forbes

Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities — always see them, for they're always there. ~Norman Vincent Peale

Wag more. Bark less. ~Author Unknown

Scratch less, purr more. ~Author Unknown

It is easy to keep things at a distance; it is hard to be naturally beyond them. ~Bunan

Surrounded by people who love life, you love it too; surrounded by people who don't, you don't. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

Physical strength is measured by what we can carry; spiritual by what we can bear. ~Author Unknown

There are souls in this world which have the gift of finding joy everywhere and of leaving it behind them when they go. ~Frederick Faber

We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon. ~Konrad Adenauer

No vision and you perish;

No ideal, and you're lost;

Your heart must ever cherish

Some faith at any cost.

Some hope, some dream to cling to,

Some rainbow in the sky,

Some melody to sing to,

Some service that is high.

~Harriet Du Autermont

Work is either fun or drudgery. It depends on your attitude. I like fun. ~Colleen C. Barrett

We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs. ~Kenneth Clark

Having worked with at risk youth... I noticed that when I was intentionally positive by looking beyond their "fog" and to their light they responded with their genius. ~Joe Tassinari

The impossible can always be broken down into possibilities. ~Author Unknown

No road is paved with gold unless you make it your own treasure. ~Alvaro Velasco

Never mind the odds against you. If you doubled your effort, what would the odds against you do — send for reinforcements? ~Robert Brault, "Sparsely Sage, Mostly Rosemary and Thyme," rbrault.blogspot.com

Don't major in minor things. ~Author Unknown

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn't be done, and he did it.

~Edgar A. Guest, It Couldn't Be Done

Why not learn to enjoy the little things — there are so many of them. ~Author Unknown

Say "Yes" to the seedlings and a giant forest cleaves the sky. Say "Yes" to the universe and the planets become your neighbors. Say "Yes" to dreams of love and freedom. It is the password to utopia. ~Brooks Atkinson, Once Around the Sun, 1951

Positive anything is better than negative thinking. ~Elbert Hubbard

They can betray me, but I choose not to betray my peace of mind. ~Dodinsky, www.dodinsky.com

The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

~John Milton

Dear Life: When you give me dilemmas, I make dilemmanade. ~Author Unknown

For every day that there is sunshine, there will be days of rain,

it's how we dance within them both that shows our love and pain.

~Joey Tolbert

Either way, things are a lot better — either a lot better than they were or a lot better than they're going to be. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

I am sure that nothing has such a decisive influence upon a man's course as his personal appearance, and not so much his appearance as his belief in its attractiveness or unattractiveness. ~Leo Tolstoy

If you are not enjoying the journey, you probably won't enjoy the destination. ~Author Unknown

Be enthusiastic. Remember the placebo effect — 30% of medicine is showbiz. ~Ronald Spark

Don't be mean when you've had a bad day. Be nice, and your day will get better. ~Terri Guillemets

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. ~G.K. Chesterton, "On Running After One's Hat," All Things Considered, 1908

It is no use to grumble and complain;

It's just as cheap and easy to rejoice;

When God sorts out the weather and sends rain -

Why, rain's my choice.

~James Whitcomb Riley

How can something bother you if you won't let it? ~Terri Guillemets

Impossible is a word only to be found in the dictionary of fools. ~Napoleon

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. ~Jack Layton

Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out. ~Art Linkletter

Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world. ~Eckhart Tolle

I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. ~Galileo Galilei

Heaven is under our feet, as well as over our heads. ~Henry David Thoreau

A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world; everyone you meet is your mirror. ~Ken Keyes, Jr.

Whatever my day may have lacked, yet I have tonight's pearl moon. ~Dr. SunWolf, professorsunwolf.com

Life does not have a stop sign, only a speed limiter. ~Harshit Bhattaram

The sun won't shine until you put the umbrella away. Be free. ~Author Unknown

Is life so wretched? Isn't it rather your hands which are too small, your vision which is muddled? You are the one who must grow up. ~Dag Hammarskjold

If you fail to look at the Brightside of life,

You will fail to succeed at leaving the Darkside of life.

~Amir Al-Rubai

Spirit can walk, spirit can swim, spirit can climb, spirit can crawl. There is no terrain you cannot overcome. ~Terri Guillemets

The man who has no inner life is a slave to his surroundings. ~Henri Frédéric Amiel

Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles. ~Alex Karras

It isn't our position but our disposition which makes us happy. ~Author Unknown

Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you. ~Maori Proverb

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky. ~Rabindranath Tagore

When I see an opportunity for humor, I grab it! After all, life is too short to be grumpy. ~Dodinsky, www.dodinsky.com

Some days there won't be a song in your heart. Sing anyway. ~Emory Austin

Mind is everything. Muscle — pieces of rubber. All that I am, I am because of my mind. ~Paavo Nurmi

Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations. ~Edward de Bono, Observer, 12 June 1977

Anywhere you go liking everyone, everyone will be likeable. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Worship," The Conduct of Life, 1860

People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them. ~Epictetus

Swallow a toad in the morning and you will encounter nothing more disgusting the rest of the day. ~Nicholas Chamfort

A cloudy day is no match for a sunny disposition. ~William Arthur Ward

I have found that if you love life, life will love you back. ~Arthur Rubinstein

There are two types of people — those who come into a room and say, "Well, here I am!" and those who come in and say, "Ah, there you are." ~Frederick L. Collins

Consider how much more you often suffer from your anger and grief, than from those very things for which you are angry and grieved. ~Marcus Antonius

You shouldn't say it is not good. You should say, you do not like it; and then, you know, you're perfectly safe. ~James Whistler

"It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily. "So it is." "And freezing." "Is it?" "Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately." ~A.A. Milne

Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise. ~Alice Walker

Those who wish to sing, always find a song. ~Swedish Proverb

So our human life but dies down to its root, and still puts forth its green blade to eternity. ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come. ~Chinese Proverb

Wish on everything. Pink cars are good, especially old ones. And stars of course, first stars and shooting stars. Planes will do if they are the first light in the sky and look like stars. Wish in tunnels, holding your breath and lifting your feet off the ground. Birthday candles. Baby teeth. ~Francesca Lia Block

What do I want to be when I grow up? Happy. I want to be happy. And useful, loved, loving, healthy, wise, free, strong. ~Terri Guillemets

Nothing is interesting if you're not interested. ~Helen MacInness

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. ~Joseph Campbell

Good fortune shies away from gloom. Keep your spirits up. Good things will come to you and you will come to good things. ~Terri Guillemets

Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude. ~Ralph Marston

Art Quotes and Sayings

Art Quotes

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. ~Henry Ward Beecher

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. ~Scott Adams

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary. ~Pablo Picasso

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home. ~Twyla Tharp

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. ~William Faulkner

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up. ~Pablo Picasso

Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one. ~Stella Adler

Painting is silent poetry. ~Plutarch, Moralia: How to Study Poetry

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen. ~Leonardo da Vinci

It has been said that art is a tryst, for in the joy of it maker and beholder meet. ~Kojiro Tomita

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

To send light into the darkness of men's hearts — such is the duty of the artist. ~Schumann

We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies. ~Pablo Picasso

I don't paint things. I only paint the difference between things. ~Henri Matisse

The artist uses the talent he has, wishing he had more talent. The talent uses the artist it has, wishing it had more artist. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

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

Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. ~Isaac Bashevis Singer

To make us feel small in the right way is a function of art; men can only make us feel small in the wrong way. ~E.M. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy, 1951

Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery and travail. ~Theodore Dreiser, Life, Art, and America, 1917

The artist's world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep. ~Paul Strand

All art requires courage. ~Anne Tucker

Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. ~Oscar Wilde

Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do. ~Edgar Degas

It is a mistake for a sculptor or a painter to speak or write very often about his job. It releases tension needed for his work. ~Henry Moore

Pictures must not be too picturesque. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better. ~André Gide

Anyone who says you can't see a thought simply doesn't know art. ~Wynetka Ann Reynolds

But that's what being an artist is — feeling crummy before everyone else feels crummy. ~The New Yorker

Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass. ~Fran Lebowitz

Great art picks up where nature ends. ~Marc Chagall

When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college — that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared at me, incredulous, and said, "You mean they forget?" ~Howard Ikemoto

Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame. ~G.K. Chesterton

What art offers is space — a certain breathing room for the spirit. ~John Updike

The artist is the opposite of the politically minded individual, the opposite of the reformer, the opposite of the idealist. The artist does not tinker with the universe, he recreates it out of his own experience and understanding of life. ~Henry Miller

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist. ~Oscar Wilde

Let me ask you something, what is not art? ~Author Unknown

The painter puts brush to canvas, and the poet puts pen to paper. The poet has the easier task, for his pen does not alter his rhyme. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

An artist is someone who produces things that people don't need to have but that he — for some reason — thinks it would be a good idea to give them. ~Andy Warhol

The buttocks are the most aesthetically pleasing part of the body because they are non-functional. Although they conceal an essential orifice, these pointless globes are as near as the human form can ever come to abstract art. ~Kenneth Tynan

God and other artists are always a little obscure. ~Oscar Wilde

For me, painting is a way to forget life. It is a cry in the night, a strangled laugh. ~Georges Rouault

Everything in creation has its appointed painter or poet and remains in bondage like the princess in the fairy tale 'til its appropriate liberator comes to set it free. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality. ~T.S. Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent, 1919

There is no surer method of evading the world than by following Art, and no surer method of linking oneself to it than by Art. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Art is... a question mark in the minds of those who want to know what's happening. ~Aaron Howard

 

   

 

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way — things I had no words for. ~Georgia O'Keeffe

Man will begin to recover the moment he takes art as seriously as physics, chemistry or money. ~Ernst Levy

Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea. ~John Anthony Ciardi

As far as I am concerned, a painting speaks for itself. What is the use of giving explanations, when all is said and done? A painter has only one language. ~Pablo Picasso

The world today doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do? ~Pablo Picasso

Sometimes, to pursue a new idea, the artist must forfeit his deposit on an old idea. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

I want to reach that condensation of sensations that constitutes a picture. ~Henri Matisse, Notes d'un peintre, 1908

Great art is as irrational as great music. It is mad with its own loveliness. ~George Jean Nathan, House of Satan

Art is the colors and textures of your imagination. ~Meghan, Los Cerros Middle School, 1999

Art is your personal diary where you may color your thoughts and emotions on a page. ~Sara, Los Cerros Middle School, 1999

Art is a shadow of what a person is thinking... a small glimpse of what they hold inside. Little secrets, regrets, joys... every line has its own meaning. ~Sarah, Los Cerros Middle School, 1999

Art is your emotions flowing in a river of imagination. ~Devin, Los Cerros Middle School, 1999

Art is an adventure that never seems to end. ~Jason, Los Cerros Middle School, 1999

Art is pictures straight from the heart. ~Ben, Los Cerros Middle School, 1999

If Michelangelo had been straight, the Sistine Chapel would have been wallpapered. ~Robin Tyler

Art is the triumph over chaos. ~John Cheever

All great art comes from a sense of outrage. ~Glenn Close

Art is indeed not the bread but the wine of life. ~Jean Paul Richter

Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. ~Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Colors are the deeds and sufferings of light. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

One of the best things about paintings is their silence — which prompts reflection and random reverie. ~Mark Stevens

God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things. ~Pablo Picasso

Art doesn't have to matter to a lot of people to matter a lot. ~Jeb Dickerson, www.howtomatter.com

Art hath an enemy called ignorance. ~Ben Jonson

What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art. ~Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Art... does not take kindly to facts, is helpless to grapple with theories, and is killed outright by a sermon. ~Agnes Repplier, Points of View, 1891

Art disturbs, science reassures. ~Georges Braque, Le Jour et la nuit

As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life. ~John Lubbock

It is frequently the tragedy of the great artist, as it is of the great scientist, that he frightens the ordinary man. ~Loren Eiseley, The Night Country, 1971

Art is spirituality in drag. ~Jennifer Yane

The artist's talent sits uneasy as an object of public acclaim, having been so long an object of private despair. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

Coloring outside the lines is a fine art. ~Kim Nance

Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul. ~W. Somerset Maugham

Reflexes and instincts are not pretty. It is their decoration that initiates art. ~Martin H. Fischer

What was any art but a mold in which to imprison for a moment the shining elusive element which is life itself — life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose. ~Willa Cather

An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world. ~George Santayana

Art is like a border of flowers along the course of civilization. ~Lincoln Steffens

Art is not a thing; it is a way. ~Elbert Hubbard

An artist's career always begins tomorrow. ~James McNeill Whistler

The artist is a receptacle for the emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web. ~Pablo Picasso

Surely nothing has to listen to so many stupid remarks as a painting in a museum. ~Edmond & Jules de Goncourt

When painting, an artist must take care not to trap his soul in the canvas. ~Terri Guillemets

An artist must be careful not to throw his ideas out with the trash. ~Terri Guillemets

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere. ~G.K. Chesterton

Artistry is an innate distrust of the theory of reality concocted by the five senses. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

The true painter strives to paint what can only be seen through his world. ~André Malraux

An artist never really finishes his work; he merely abandons it. ~Paul Valéry

Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is. ~Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark, 1915

A subject that is beautiful in itself gives no suggestion to the artist. It lacks imperfection. ~Oscar Wilde

An art critic is someone who appreciates art, except for any particular piece of art. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

An artist cannot talk about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture. ~Jean Cocteau, Newsweek, 16 May 1955

The artist does not see things as they are, but as he is. ~Alfred Tonnelle

Art is the struggle to understand. ~Terri Guillemets

A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened. ~Albert Camus

For the mystic what is how. For the craftsman how is what. For the artist what and how are one. ~William McElcheran

O, how much simpler things would be

If eyes could paint or brush could see.

~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

Art is a kind of illness. ~Giacomo Puccini

A great artist is always before his time or behind it. ~George Moore

A man and his art are like a fool and his king. ~Terri Guillemets

Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation. ~Henri Cartier-Bresson

A painting is what you make of it, besides which, 'Moon, Weeping' has a better ring to it than 'Paintbrush, Dripping.' ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum. ~Claes Oldenburg

Science is out of the reach of morals, for her eyes are fixed upon eternal truths. Art is out of the reach of morals, for her eyes are fixed upon things beautiful and immortal and ever-changing. To morals belong the lower and less intellectual spheres. ~Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, 1891

While I recognize the necessity for a basis of observed reality... true art lies in a reality that is felt. ~Odilon Redon

The first assumption of an art critic is that the artist meant to paint something else. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality. ~Pablo Picasso

If one looks closely enough, one can see angels in every piece of art. ~Terri Guillemets

My inspiration is art... because without art, we would just be stuck with reality. ~Daniel R. Lynch

The question of common sense is always what is it good for? — a question which would abolish the rose and be answered triumphantly by the cabbage. ~James Russell Lowell

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. ~Aristotle

Art is when you hear a knocking from your soul — and you answer. ~Terri Guillemets

Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don't like — then cultivate it. That's the only part of your work that's individual and worth keeping. ~Jean Cocteau

Picasso would give up cubism just to capture your curves. ~Konfal Blyther

Any great work of art... revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world — the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air. ~Leonard Bernstein, What Makes Opera Grand?

There is in every artist's studio a scrap heap of discarded works in which the artist's discipline prevailed against his imagination. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

Art, as far as it is able, follows nature, as a pupil imitates his master; thus your art must be, as it were, God's grandchild. ~Dante Alighieri, Inferno

A portrait has one advantage over its original: it is unconscious; and you may therefore admire without insulting it. I have seen portraits which have more. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827

The fine arts once divorcing themselves from truth are quite certain to fall mad, if they do not die. ~Thomas Carlyle, Latter Day Pamphlets, no. 8

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable. ~George Bernard Shaw

A man paints with his brains and not with his hands. ~Michelangelo

Artists can color the sky red because they know it's blue. Those of us who aren't artists must color things the way they really are or people might think we're stupid. ~Jules Feiffer

All the other colors are just colors, but purple seems to have a soul. Purple is not just a noun and an adjective but also a verb — when you look at it, it's looking back at you. ~Uniek Swain

Architecture begins where engineering ends. ~Walter Gropius

Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling. ~G.K. Chesterton

Why should I paint dead fish, onions and beer glasses? Girls are so much prettier. ~Marie Laurencin

Art is Man's nature. Nature is god's art. ~James Bailey

The artist gazes upon a reality and creates his own impression. The viewer gazes upon the impression and creates his own reality. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together. ~John Ruskin