This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Reading and what it can contribute to one's life is not something that pertains only to the ego and its conscious mind; it is also deeply rooted in the unconsciousness. Those who retain all through life a deep commitment to the literary harbor in their consciousness some residue of their earlier conviction that reading is an art permitting access to magic worlds, although very few of them are aware that they subconsciously believe this to be so." - Bruno Bettelheim
"Silence is one of the great arts of conversation, as allowed by Cicero himself, who says, "there is not only an art, but an eloquence in it." A well bred woman may easily and effectually promote the most useful and elegant conversation without speaking a word. The modes of speech are scarcely more variable than the modes of silence." -
"The ultimate function of art is to make men do what they want to do, as it is to make them recognize what they know." - Maurice Blondel
"There is a theory that since the child will be obliged in later life to do many things that he does not want to do, he might as well learn how while he is young. The difficulty here seems to be that learning to do one kind of a thing that you do not want to do does not guarantee your readiness to do other kinds of unpleasant things. That art cannot be taught. Each situation of compulsion, unless the spirit is completely broken, will have its own peculiar quality of bitterness, and no guarantee against it can be inculcated." -
"The language of the heart which comes from the heart and goes to the heart - is always simple, graceful, and full of power, but no art of rhetoric can teach it. It is at once the easiest and most difficult language, difficult, since it needs a heart to speak it; easy, because its periods though rounded and full of harmony, are still unstudied." - Christian Nestell Bovee
"Illusions are art, for the feeling person, and it is by art that we live, if we do." - Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen
"What is Zen in the art of helping? It is easier to say what it is not than more positively to describe the essence. It is to avoid the boosting of the ego through ‘good works’. It is to aid oneself and others in the pursuit of the good life; to discover and uncover new vigour and freshness in the art of living; to uncover the primal ability of love. Living in the here and now is a major ingredient." - David A. Brandon
"There are other similarities between poetry and children's speech. Poets tend to look for significant evocative detail --something straight out of life -- to carry their meaning, and to avoid the vaguely general or abstract terms. With young children it is not a matter of choice. Their ideas must take a concrete form of expression because they have not mastered the art of masking and handling (Sign-mind) abstraction. A five year old boy in an infants' class once said, "Oh, yes, I know Geography. Its polar bears at the top and penguins at the bottom."" -
"Logic is the art of making truth prevail." - Jean de La Bruyère
"Poetry is that art which selects and arranges the symbols of thought in such a manner as to excite the imagination the most powerfully and delightfully." - William Cullen Bryant
"Art and science have their meeting point in method." - Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
"Art does not imitate nature, but founds itself on the study of nature - takes from nature the selections which best accord with its own intention, and then bestows on them that which nature does not possess, vis.: the mind and soul of man." - Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
"Art is the effort of man to express the ideas which nature suggests to him of a power above nature, whether that power be within the recesses of his own being, or in the Great First Cause of which nature, like himself, is but the effect." - Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
"Art itself is essentially ethical; because every true work of art must have a beauty and grandeur cannot be comprehended by the beholder except through the moral sentiment. The eye is only a witness; it is not a judge. The mind judges what the eye reports to it; therefore, whatever elevates the moral sentiment to the contemplation of beauty and grandeur is in itself ethical." - Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
"Architecture has much to teach about the art of staying married, for the basic laws of building are, likewise, the basic laws of the home. A good foundation and balanced proportion are essential. Honest materials are needed, for you cannot build a noble building out of cheap, unworthy materials and you cannot build a home to stand against the stormy winds or worries unless you build it with the simple virtues of faithfulness and loyalty to one another." - Robert Burns, aka Rabbie Burns, Scotland's favourite son, the Ploughman Poet, Robden of Solway Firth, the Bard of Ayrshire and in Scotland as simply The Bard
"Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises... If life is an illusion, then so is death-the greatest of all illusions. If life must not be taken too seriously-then neither must death." - Samuel Butler
"Joy is indeed a precious quality which very few experience in their lives. The person who knows how to enjoy life will never grow old no matter how many years he can call his own. It is easy to be happy at specific times, but there is a certain art in being happy and contented every day." - Ora Capelli
"If it weren’t for art, there wouldn’t’ be any science." - Angela Cartwright, fully Angela Margaret Cartwright
"Art does not surpass nature, but only brings it to perfection." - Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa
"Art is a harmony which runs parallel with nature -- what is one to think of those imbeciles who say that the artist is always inferior to nature?" - Paul Cézanne
"The artist must penetrate into the world, feel the fate of human beings, of peoples, with real love. There is not art for art's sake. One must be interested in the entire realm of life." - Marc Chagall, born Moishe Shagal
"Nothing sublimely artistic has ever arisen out of mere art, any more than anything essentially reasonable has ever arisen out of the pure reason. There must always be a rich moral soil for any great aesthetic growth." - G. K. Chesterton, fully Gilbert Keith Chesterton
"Art-for art's sake (and) art-for-people's sake are equally ridiculous. I suggest art for God's sake." - Jean Cocteau
"Art is science made clear." - Jean Cocteau
"Art produces ugly things which frequently become beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which have always become ugly with time." - Jean Cocteau
"Art neither belongs to religion, nor to ethics; but, like these, it brings us nearer to the Infinite, on of the forms of which it manifests to us. God is the source of all beauty, as of all truth of all religion, of all morality. The most exalted object, therefore, of art is to reveal in its own manner the sentiment of the Infinite." - Victor Cousin
"Moral beauty is the basis of all true beauty. This foundation is somewhat covered and veiled in a nature. Art brings it out, and gives it more transparent forms. It is here and that art, when it knows well its power and resources, engages in a struggle with nature in which it may have the advantage." - Victor Cousin
"The object of art is to crystallize emotion into thought, and then fix it in form." - Louis Delsarte, fully Louis J. Delsarte
"The art of meditation may be exercised at all hours, and in all places; and men of genius, in their walks at table, and amidst assemblies, turning the eye of the mind inwards, can form an artificial solitude; retired amidst a crowd, calm amidst distraction, and wise amidst folly." - Isaac D'Israeli
"Jealousy is the art of injuring ourselves more than others." - Alexandre Dumas, born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie
"The highest art is artlessness." - Francis Alexander "F.A." Durivage, wrote under pen name "Old Un"
"It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge." - Albert Einstein
"It was the scientists who first made true democracy possible, for not only did they lighten our daily tasks but they made the finest works of art and thought, whose enjoyment was until recently the privilege of the favored classes, accessible to all." - Albert Einstein
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder, and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed... To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong to the ranks of devoutly religious men." - Albert Einstein
"No man is matriculated to the art of life till he has been well tempted." - George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans
"To live remains an art which everyone must learn, and which no one can teach." - Henry Havelock Ellis
"The ideal itself is but truth clothed in the forms of art." - Octave Feuillet
"The practice of medicine is a thinker's art, the practice of surgery a plumber's." - Martin Henry Fischer
"Having once found the intensity of art, nothing else that can happen in life can ever again seem as important as the creative process." - F. Scott Fitzgerald, fully Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
"There need not be in religion, or music, or art, or love, or goodness, anything that is against reason; but never while the sun shines will we get great religion, or music, or art, or love, or goodness, without going beyond reason." - Harry Emerson Fosdick
"The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young mind for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards." - Anatole France, pen name of Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault
"War is not an art, and accident alone decides the outcome of battles. If two generals confront each other and both are stupid, one necessarily must win." - Anatole France, pen name of Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault