Music, Art and Madness Quotations and Proverbs

* some views expressed in these quotations not neccesarily endorsed by the author of this file.
* for entertainment only - history is not an exact science - dates and quotes not guaranteed for accuracy.

Added for March 2010: (18)

I believe that if it were left to artists to choose their own labels, most would choose none.

I wish it were easier to be objective enough to label one's own art.
  • [obq]
Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.
  • Elvis Costello, Interview in Musician magazine, October 1983
Eighty percent of success is showing up.
  • Woody Allen
The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through.
  • Jackson Pollock (1912 - 1956)
Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
  • Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)
Among all men on the earth, bards have a share of honor and reverence, because the muse has taught them songs and loves the race of bards.
  • Homer (800 BC - 700 BC), The Odyssey
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
  • Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
I'm an artist who is a Christian. I'm not a Christian artist.
  • Johnny Cash, (1932 - 2003) Time Magazine
Part of being sane, is being a little bit crazy.
  • Janet Long
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
  • Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)
Art is on the side of the oppressed. [...] For if art is freedom of the spirit, how can it exist within the oppressors?
  • Edith Wharton (1862 - 1937)
Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.
  • George Lois
My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary.
  • Martin Luther (1483 - 1546)
[that] nature without culture can often do more to deserve praise than culture without nature.
  • Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)
Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.
  • G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)
I never took hallucinogenic drugs because I never wanted my consciousness expanded one unnecessary iota.
  • Fran Lebowitz (1950 - ) writer and humorist
If a thing isn't worth saying, you sing it.
  • Pierre Beaumarchais (1732 - 1799)

 

 

 

 

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