Motivational quotes to the rescue! Are you looking for a super quotable burst of inspiration? Are you ready for a little push in the right direction?
Or maybe you’re working on your latest creative project—a poem, a book, a sculpture, a painting—only to realize it’s not turning out the way you wanted.
Have no fear, I’ve got a quote for any and all of that! 👩🏻🎨
The Beauty of a Much-Needed Inspirational Quote
Quotes are a great way to give yourself small reminders and occasional bursts of encouragement, especially if you’re feeling hopeless or discouraged, faced with anxiety, grappling with fear of failure (or fear of success), or dealing with the dreaded writerʻs block or artistʻs block.
A piece of advice: If that’s happening to you, put the project aside and take a step back. You might be tempted to throw in the towel, but donʻt. Stay the course. If you decide to let a project go, let it be because you have thoughtfully accepted that itʻs not the right time or place for the project, and not because youʻre discouraged and frustrated.
Creative blocks happen, and everyone who has successfully sold a painting or published a book will tell you that creative ruts are part of the process. It’s just a matter of getting those creative juices flowing again.
Reclaim Inspiration
Rather than wait for inspiration, nudge it back into your corner with a little bit of hard work and a lot of persistence.
We all know that surrounding ourselves with people who lift us up and inspire us can help us reach our creative goals faster. The works and words of great artists and writers can help us overcome these same hurdles. A well-chosen word or phrase can motivate us, ignite passion, and rekindle our creative souls.
In that spirit, I’ve rounded up a collection of over 200 inspirational quotes from famous artists, creators, businesspeople, and world leaders to help keep you motivated. Write these quotes down and put them in your journal, on your bathroom mirror, on the door to the fridge, in your car. Send them to a friend. These bite-sized creative boosts are here for you whenever you feel the chips are down.
200+ Inspirational Quotes for Art and Writing
- “Painting is an illusion, a piece of magic, so what you see is not what you see.” —Philip Guston
- “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” —Andy Warhol
- “To create one’s own world takes courage.” —Georgia O’Keeffe
- “Creativity exists in the present moment. You can’t find it anywhere else.” —Natalie Goldberg
- “Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.” —Leonardo da Vinci
- “The chief enemy of creativity is ‘good’ sense.” —Pablo Picasso
- “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” —Pablo Picasso
- “Stay firmly in your path and dare. Be wild two hours a day!” —Paul Gauguin
- “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get the work done. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you’re not going to make an awful lot of work. ” —Chuck Close
- “A true artist is not one who is inspired, but one who inspires others.“ ―Salvador Dali
- “Success is a worn down pencil.” —Rauschenberg
- “Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.” —Meister Johann Eckhart
- “When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.” —Thomas Stearns Eliot
- “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” —Thomas Stearns Eliot
- “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” —Amelia Earhart
- “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” —J. K. Rowling
- “I never dreamed about success, I worked for it.” —Estée Lauder
- “If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint.” —Edward Hopper
- “Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.” ―Leonardo da Vinci
- “The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” —Hans Hofmann
- “Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.” —Stella Adler
- “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” —Mahatma Gandhi
- “There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” —Aristotle
- “No chaos, damn it.” —Jackson Pollock
- “Hope begins in the dark.” —Anne Lamott
- “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.” —Bill Gates
- “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” —Walt Disney
- “Short cuts make long delays.” ―J.R.R. Tolkien
- “You’ll never really be great unless you aim high.” ―Stella Adler
- “Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.” ―Pablo Picasso
- “A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.” ―Francis Bacon
- “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” —Benjamin Franklin
- “I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse.” ―Florence Nightingale
- “Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.” ―Francis Bacon
- “If we go for the easy way, we never change.” ―Marina Abramovic
- “You get whatever accomplishment you are willing to declare.” —Georgia O’Keeffe
- “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” ―Albert Einstein
- “You’re a creative person. So come up with a creative solution.” ―Darien Gee
- “If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.” —Michelangelo
- “The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” ―Sylvia Plath
- “There is no ‘right’ way to make art. The only wrong is in not trying, not doing. Don’t put barriers up that aren’t there — just get to work and make something.” —Lisa Golightly
- “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” —Maya Angelou
- “Routine kills creative thought.” —Scarlett Thomas
- “Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one. “ ―Stella Adler
- “What keeps my heart awake is colorful silence.” ―Claude Monet
- “Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.” ―Twyla Tharp
- “Creativity is intelligence having fun.” ―Albert Einstein
- “The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.” ―Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” ―Albert Einstein
- “Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it.” ―Salvador Dali
- “The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real.” ―Lucian Freud
- “An artist never really finishes his work; he merely abandons it.” ―Paul Valéry
- “One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.” ―Leonardo da Vinci
- “The artist’s world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep.” ―Paul Strand
- “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” ―Henry David Thoreau
- “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” ―Pablo Picasso
- “I wish they would only take me as I am.” ―Vincent Van Gogh
- “To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.” ―Kurt Vonnegut
- “Do not fear mistakes ― there are none.” ―Miles David
- “I invent nothing, I rediscover.” ―Auguste Rodin
- “Every canvas is a journey all its own.” ―Helen Frankenthaler
- “If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.” ―Émile Zola
- “The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity.” ―Alberto Giacometti
- “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” ―Thomas Merton
- “We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents.” —Bob Ross
- “Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.” ―Salvador Dali
- “The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.” ―Robert Hughes
- “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” ―Dr. Seuss
- “Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it.” ―Andy Warhol
- “Art is a line around your thoughts.” ―Gustav Klimt
- “While drawing, I discover what I really want to say. “ ―Dario Fo
- “I think that little by little I’ll be able to solve my problems and survive.” ―Frida Kahlo
- “At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.” ―Frida Kahlo
- “I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.” ―Frida Kahlo
- “Don’t put yourself down. Be kind. Trust your words. Trust your desire to write.” ―Darien Gee
- “No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination.” ―Edward Hopper
- “More of me comes out when I improvise.” ―Edward Hopper
- “I have tried to present my sensations in what is the most congenial and impressive form possible to me.” ―Edward Hopper
- “If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.” ―Marc Chagall
- “Love and fantasy, go hand in hand.” ―Marc Chagall
- “What a genius, that Picasso. It is a pity he doesn’t paint.” ―Marc Chagall
- “To look at something as though we had never seen it before requires great courage.” ―Henri Matisse
- “Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while one is working.” ―Henri Matisse
- “Exactitude is not truth.” ―Henri Matisse
- “Impressionism is the newspaper of the soul” ―Henri Matisse
- “When you’re out of willpower, you can call on stubbornness.” ―Henri Matisse
- “One just has to shut up, sit down, and write.” ―Natalie Goldberg
- “Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: rationalize them, understand them thoroughly.” ―Salvador Dali
- “I am not strange. I am just not normal.” ―Salvador Dali
- “Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.” ―Salvador Dali
- “Life is too short to remain unnoticed.” ―Salvador Dali
- “The problem with the youth of today is that one is no longer part of it.” ―Salvador Dali
- “You have to create confusion systematically, it sets creativity free. Everything that is contradictory creates life.” ―Salvador Dali
- “No masterpiece was ever created by a lazy artist.” ―Salvador Dali
- “The true painter must be able, with the most usual things, to have the most unusual ideas.” ―Salvador Dali
- “You need to let the little things that would ordinarily bore you suddenly thrill you.” ―Andy Warhol
- “Patience is also a form of action.” ―Auguste Rodin
- “Everything I do is intended to be big.” ―Henry Moore
- “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” ―Steve Jobs
- “Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.” ―Steve Jobs
- “Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.” ―Steve Jobs
- “You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you’re not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out.” ―Steve Jobs
- “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” ―Neil Gaiman
- “Because,’ she said, ‘when you’re scared but you still do it anyway, that’s brave.” ―Neil Gaiman
- “Don’t let anyone tell you what you can or cannot write, who you can or cannot be.” ―Darien Gee
- “Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye… it also includes the inner pictures of the soul.” ―Edvard Munch
- “Truth is like fire; to tell the truth means to glow and burn.” ―Gustav Klimt
- “I would rather die of passion than of boredom.” ―Émile Zola
- “The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.” ―Émile Zola
- “The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul.” ―Wassily Kandinsky
- “Creativity is magic. Don’t examine it too closely.” ―Edward Albee
- “The chief enemy of creativity is ‘good’ sense.” ―Pablo Picasso
- “Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” ―Henry Ward Beecher
- “The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.” ―Robert Henri
- “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” ―Vincent Van Gogh
- “Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.” ―Stella Adler
- “No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.” ―Oscar Wilde
- “A good artist has less time than ideas.” ―Martin Kippenberger
- “If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.” ―Marc Chagall
- “Art must be an expression of love or it is nothing.” ―Marc Chagall
- “In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.” ―Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.” ―Georgia O’Keeffe
- “Great art picks up where nature ends.” ―Marc Chagall
- “I think of art as the highest level of creativity. To me, it is one of the greatest sources of enjoyment.” ―David Rockefeller
- “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” ―Thomas Merton
- “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” ―Scott Adams
- “You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not’?” ―George Bernard Shaw
- “Creativity is a drug I cannot live without.” ―Cecil B. DeMille
- “No one can write the book that you are going to write. It’s as simple as that.” ―Darien Gee
- “Originality is nothing but judicious imitation.” ―Voltaire
- “Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last, you create what you will.” ―George Bernard Shaw
- “You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club.” ―Jack London
- “Creativity is contagious, pass it on.” ―Albert Einstein
- “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”―Pablo Picasso
- “Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.” ―Claude Monet
- “Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art. ” ―Andy Warhol
- “Creativity is nothing but a mind set free.” —Torrie T. Asai
- “Creativity comes from a conflict of ideas.” ―Donatella Versace
- “Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected.” ―William Plomer
- “Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.” ―Ray Bradbury
- “The artist has one function ― to affirm and glorify life.” ―W. Edward Brow
- “Every artist was first an amateur.” ―Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time, it’s just that others are behind the times.” ―Martha Graham
- “The Achilles heel of an artist lies in the hope that his art is good.” ―Kapil Gupta
- “The artist is not a different kind of person, but every person is a different kind of artist.” ―Eric Gill
- “Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.” ―Stephen Sondheim
- “Culture is the arts elevated to a set of beliefs.” ―Thomas Wolfe
- “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” ―Aristotle
- “You have a million excuses. Write anyway.” ―Carrie Kei Heim
- “Great design is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” ― De Saint Exupery
- “It’s so fine and yet so terrible to stand in front of a blank canvas.” ―Paul Cezanne
- “Practice what you know and it will help you to make clear what you do not know.” ―Rembrandt
- “A picture is a poem without words.” ―Horace
- “A true masterpiece does not tell everything.” ―Albert Camus
- “Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.” ―Leo Burnett
- “Ideas come from everything.” ―Alfred Hitchcock
- “Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.” ―Rumi
- “Every child has the spirit of creation. The rubbish of life often exterminates the spirit through plague and a soul’s own wretchedness.” ―Peter Paul Rubens
- “Every new idea is just a mashup or a remix of one or more previous ideas.” ―Austin Kleon
- “I am an artwork in constant progress; I am my own canvas, my own colors, my own brushes, and my own inspiration.” ―Efrat Cybulkiewicz
- “I don’t want to be interesting. I want to be good.” ―Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe
- “I go to seek a great perhaps.” ―John Green
- “I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.” ―Georgia O’Keeffe
- “Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.” ―John Steinbeck
- “It is only when we are no longer fearful that we begin to create.” ―J. M. W. Turner
- “The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you’re an artist.” ―David Hockney
- “Art deteriorates when it is done for the audience.” ―James Pierce
- “The great artist is the simplifier.” ―Vincent van Gogh
- “The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to.” ―Frida Kahlo
- “Never worry about being obsessive. I like obsessive people. Obsessive people make great art.” ―Susan Sontag
- “In any art you’re allowed to steal anything if you can make it better.” ―Ernest Hemingway
- “Art is meant to disturb, science reassures.” ―Georges Braque
- “A work is finished when an artist realizes his intentions.” ―Rembrandt
- “Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.” ―Edgar Degas
- “Art is the expression of the profoundest thoughts in the simplest way.” ―Albert Einstein
- “Art is to look at not to criticize.” ―Edgar Allen Poe
- “I shut my eyes in order to see.” ―Paul Gauguin
- “Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.” ―Oscar Wilde
- “Controversy is part of the nature of art and creativity.” ―Yoko Ono
- “I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.” ―Vincent van Gogh
- “It is absurd to look for perfection.” ―Camille Pissarro
- “To create, one must first question everything.” ―Eileen Gray
- “The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.” ―Steven Pressfield
- “The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.” ―Steve Jobs
- “It’s on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly.” ―Claude Monet
- “One must spoil as many canvases as one succeeds with.” ―Vincent van Gogh
- “Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.” ―Peter O’Toole
- “The greatest respect an artist can pay to music is to give it life.” ―Pablo Casals
- “There are more valid facts and details in works of art than there are in history books.” ―Charlie Chaplin
- “Art is not what you see, but what you see through.” ―Joe Koolish
- “Art is never finished; it is only abandoned.” ―Jean Cocteau
- “It is by doing, doing, doing, and by trying, trying, trying that we seem to acquire wisdom.” ―George Bernard Shaw
- “Art is not a mirror; it is a hammer. It is not a portrait; it is a protest.” ―Andre Malraux
- “Art is the personal use of the universal.” ―Grace Lee Boggs
- “The artist must know, must see with his mind’s eye, must feel with his heart and then translate into his own unique language and style.” ―Leonard Cohen
- “Art has no purpose other than itself. It is better for being impractical, inefficient, and unnecessary. Its very existence is its most beautiful and worthwhile feature.” ―Donna Haraway
- “Art is not a thing, it is a way.” ―Elbert Hubbard
- “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” —Theodore Roosevelt
- “Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure.” —Alfred North Whitehead
- “Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.” —Simonides
- “Art does not reflect what is seen, rather it makes the hidden visible.” —Paul Klee
- “The artist has a special task and duty: the task of reminding men of their humanity and the promise of their creativity.” —Lewis Mumford
- “Draw the art you want to see.” —Austin Kleon
- “If you draw, the world becomes more beautiful, far more beautiful.” —E.O. Plauen
- “To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.” —Joseph Chilton Pearce
- “The things you are passionate about are not random, they are your calling.” ―Fabienne Frederickson
- “Talent is good. Practice is better. Passion is best.” ―Frank Lloyd Wright
The Creative Journey
I’ve learned a lot over the years as an author who has had small advances and big advances, awards and no awards, good reviews and bad reviews. I have had my ups and downs, sometimes letting months pass before I am able to do my work again. Getting in a creative rut is hard, because at some point you have to get out, and the longer you’ve been in it, the harder it is. Consider these quotes small nudges to get you where you want to go, to get you back on the path of your creative journey.
One thing I know for sure is that nothing is permanent, and neither is your creative block. I hope these quotes ignite your imagination and help you remember who you are as an artist, writer, creator. Choose your favorites and turn to these quotes whenever you need some motivation.
Do not allow a creative stumbling block to derail your progress or dampen your spirits. Donʻt give up and continue creating (if you need a push, try one of these prompts). If you do best with daily reminders, check out this calendar. When you show up for the blank page or canvas, inspiration will find its way back to you.
"Another word for creativity is courage." -Henri Matisse Click To Tweet
You got this. Now go out there and create something great!
