The Quotes canon

Sourced and curated.

Every quote has been curated by hand and carefully authenticated.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
James Joyce2 quotes
I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use—silence, exile and cunning. — James Joyce · 1915When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets. — James Joyce · 1915
Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is. — Jackson Pollock
Jim Dine1 quote
I don't paint out of responsibility. I paint out of need. — Jim Dine · 2010
A bird does not sing because he has an answer. He sings because he has a song. — Joan Walsh Anglund · 1967
Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1840
Dance is the hidden language of the soul. — Martha Graham · 1991
I quote others only in order the better to express myself. — Michel de Montaigne · 1575
The pen is the tongue of the soul. — Miguel de Cervantes · 1615
The blue period was not a question of color. It was an inner necessity to paint like that. — Pablo Picasso · 1956
I'm using art as a means of changing myself, as a means of breaking out of a category. — Vito Acconci · 1971
I celebrate myself, and sing myself. — Walt Whitman · 1855