Aphorisms Galore!

Art and Literature

44 aphorisms  ·  14 comments

Aphorisms in This Category

tiny.ag/1kb8kpsn  ·   Fair (363 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist after one grows up.

Pablo Picasso, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/lrnyb5qs  ·   Fair (346 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

Art is the lie that makes us realize the truth.

Pablo Picasso, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/p6bwfqfr  ·   Fair (702 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

P. J. O'Rourke, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/xrmys3sk  ·   Fair (358 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

Learning music by reading about it is like making love by mail.

Luciano Pavarotti, in Art and Literature and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/o5xbszuz  ·   Fair (356 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

Flannery O'Connor, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/n6fwvz07  ·   Fair (352 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.

Flannery O'Connor, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/is8fdtaa  ·   Fair (1041 ratings)  ·  submitted 1999

Love affairs have always greatly interested me, but I do not greatly care for them in books or moving pictures. In a love affair, I wish to be the hero, with no audience present.

E. W. Howe, in Art and Literature and Love and Hate

tiny.ag/1zzynlyn  ·   Fair (439 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves.

Gilbert Highet, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/xudcfsey  ·   Fair (845 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

In a painting I want to say something comforting.

Vincent van Gogh, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/bmdpgrs0  ·   Fair (1377 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

Let's have some new clichés.

Samuel Goldwyn, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/yuezt1iy  ·   Fair (377 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

A painting in a museum probably hears more foolish remarks than anything else in the world.

Edmond Jules Goncourt, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/bkfg47jr  ·   Fair (887 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

I didn't like the play. But I saw it under unfavorable circumstances -- the curtains were up.

Groucho Marx, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/asaliq9g  ·   Fair (3066 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

tiny.ag/xozwtgoz  ·   Fair (866 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

Dictionaries are like watches: the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

Samuel Johnson, in Art and Literature and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/byzkqtr3  ·   Fair (651 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.

Samuel Johnson, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/qyerpit3  ·   Fair (374 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

Samuel Johnson, in Art and Literature and Work and Recreation

tiny.ag/vgytosrx  ·   Fair (309 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree, it better not come at all.

John Keats, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/airwcz94  ·   Fair (1078 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

A book is a mirror; if an ass peers into it, you can't expect an apostle to look out.

G. C. Lichtenberg, in Art and Literature and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/4dr826gh  ·   Fair (787 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

A man is a critic when he cannot be an artist, in the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier.

Gustave Flaubert, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/c4btvpfg  ·   Fair (841 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

Some editors are failed writers, but then, so are most writers.

T. S. Eliot, in Art and Literature