Quotes by Art Critics

One altar forever is preserved, that whereon we burn incense to the supreme idol,--ourselves, our god is great, and money is his Prophet! We devastate nature in order to make sacrifice to him; we boast that we have conquered Matter and forget that it is matter that has forever enslaved us.
Kakuzō Okakura
You speak of the hand of Fatma, my friends, but you do not know the terrible power of this hand, the hand of monsters that menace you and seduce you with their subterranean access, their metallic splintering, their inhuman grotesqueness of idols.
Georges Limbour
When men are rightly occupied their amusement grows out of their work as the color-petals out of a fruitful flower.
John Ruskin
When love and skill work together expect a masterpiece.
John Ruskin
The highest reward for man's toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it.
John Ruskin
Dream lofty dreams and as you dream so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall at last unveil.
John Ruskin
Neither in the life of the individual nor in that of mankind is it desirable to know the future.
Jakob Burckhardt
God gives us always strength enough and sense enough for everything He wants us to do.
John Ruskin
Sometimes gentle sometimes capricious sometimes awful never the same for two moments together almost human in its passions almost spiritual in its tenderness almost Divine in its infinity.
John Ruskin
Shadows are in reality when the sun is shining the most conspicuous thing in a landscape next to the highest lights.
John Ruskin
When I have been unhappy I have heard an opera ... and it seemed the shrieking of winds when I am happy a sparrow's chirp is delicious to me. But it is not the chirp that makes me happy but I that make it sweet.
John Ruskin
When a man is wrapped up in himself he makes a pretty small package.
John Ruskin
You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.
Denis Diderot
When men are rightfully occupied then their amusement grows out of their work as the color petals out of a fruitful garden.
John Ruskin
The weakest among us has a gift however seemingly trivial which is peculiar to him and which worthily used will be a gift also to his race.
John Ruskin
Sunshine is delicious rain is refreshing wind braces us up snow is exhilarating there is really no such thing as bad weather only different kinds of good weather.
John Ruskin
At times failure is very necessary for the artist. It reminds him that failure is not the ultimate disaster. And this reminder liberates him from the mean fussing of perfectionism.
John Berger
The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.
John Ruskin
All profoundly original work looks ugly at first.
Clement Greenberg
Endurance is nobler than strength and patience than beauty.
John Ruskin
Sunshine is delicious rain is refreshing wind braces us up snow is exhilarating there is really no such thing as bad weather only different kinds of good weather.
John Ruskin
Dream lofty dreams and as you dream so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall at last unveil.
John Ruskin
At times failure is very necessary for the artist. It reminds him that failure is not the ultimate disaster. And this reminder liberates him from the mean fussing of perfectionism.
John Berger
The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.
John Ruskin
All profoundly original work looks ugly at first.
Clement Greenberg
Endurance is nobler than strength and patience than beauty.
John Ruskin
The greatest efforts of the race have always been traceable to the love of praise as the greatest catastrophes to the love of pleasure.
John Ruskin
The best doctor is the one you run for and can't find.
Denis Diderot
The history of medicine is a story of amazing foolishness and amazing intelligence.
Jerome Tarshis
No one can do me any good by loving me I have more love than I need or could do any good with but people do me good by making me love them - which isn't easy.
John Ruskin
When love and skill work together expect a masterpiece.
John Ruskin
Instinct guides the animal better than the man. In the animal it is pure in man it is led astray by his reason and intelligence.
Denis Diderot
I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility.
John Ruskin
Isn't it better to have men be ungrateful than to miss a chance to do good?
Denis Diderot
When men are rightly occupied their amusement grows out of their work as the color-petals out of a fruitful flower.
John Ruskin
I know well that happiness is in little things.
John Ruskin
When I have been unhappy I have heard an opera ... and it seemed the shrieking of winds when I am happy a sparrow's chirp is delicious to me. But it is not the chirp that makes me happy but I that make it sweet.
John Ruskin
It takes immense genius to represent simply and sincerely what we see in front of us.
Edmond Duranty
Sunshine is delicious rain is refreshing wind braces us up snow is exhilarating there is really no such thing as bad weather only different kinds of good weather.
John Ruskin
There is no wealth but life.
John Ruskin
Only passions great passions can elevate the soul to great things.
Denis Diderot
To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education.
John Ruskin
God gives us always strength enough and sense enough for everything He wants us to do.
John Ruskin
Cheerfulness is as natural to the heart of man in strong health as color to his cheek and wherever there is habitual gloom there must be either bad air unwholesome food improperly severe labor or erring habits of life.
John Ruskin
There is hardly anything in the world that some man can't make a little worse and sell a little cheaper and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey.
John Ruskin
Sunshine is delicious rain is refreshing wind braces us snow is exhilarating there is no such thing as bad weather only different kinds of good weather.
John Ruskin
If a book is worth reading it is worth buying.
John Ruskin
Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless peacocks and lilies for instance.
John Ruskin
Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless peacocks and lilies for instance.
John Ruskin
The beauty of the animal form is in exact proportion to the amount of moral and intellectual virtue expressed by it.
John Ruskin
All profoundly original art looks ugly at first.
Clement Greenberg
Fine art is that in which the hand the head and the heart of man go together.
John Ruskin
No architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.
John Ruskin
All that is good in art is the expression of one soul talking to another and is precious according to the greatness of the soul that utters it.
John Ruskin
Distance is a great promoter of admiration!
Denis Diderot
God alone can finish.
John Ruskin
The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings.
Okakura Kakuzo
One of the major obstacles impeding any positive future change in our lives is that we are too busy with our current work or activity. Levi quit his tax-work, Peter stopped fishing at lake, Paul ceased being a priest. They all left their jobs because they thought it was necessary.
John Ruskin
It is evident that the chief feeling induced by woody country is one of reverence for its antiquity. There is a quiet melancholy about the decay of the patriarchal trunks, which is enhanced by the green and elastic vigor of the young saplings; the noble form of the forest aisles, and the subdued light which penetrates their entangled boughs, combine to add to the impression; and the whole character of the scene is calculated to excite conservative feeling. The man who could remain a radical in a wood country is a disgrace to his species.
John Ruskin
I am stuck in traffic in a taxicabwhich is typicaland not just of modern life
Frank O'Hara