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Welcome! There are more than 900 Inspirational Quotes For Writers, Artists and Other Creative Leaders on this site.
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Monday, November 15, 2010

Henri Matisse

"Creation is the artist's true function; where there is no creation there is no art."



French Artist
1869 - 1954



Matisse, Woman With A Hat, 1905
Most of us are drawn to the arts because of a need to create something, to express what we are feeling.  Those who stay involved with some art form, such as writing, painting or acting, must also learn technique, but if in the study of techniques we forget creativity, we have lost touch with the purpose of art.  Creativity is the very heart of what we do.  The mastery and perfection of technique must never be more important then the creative impulse.  The art we create must be fresh and new, not boring and repetitious.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Muriel Rukeyser

"The universe is made of stories, not of atoms."



American Poet
1913 - 1980






The universe is alive with story.  Without story, much of what we as humans know would be meaningless.  Through story we understand the world around us.  Through story we understand our lives and why we have lived the way we lived.  Story provides meaning to the events that have happened and the sorrows we have experienced.  As creative leaders, we are driven to share our story whether that be through a poem, a painting, a novel, a song, a sculpture, a film or a dance.  What stories are you telling in your art?  What stories are you telling that define who you are?  Our lives are filled with story.  Share yours today.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Santoka Taneda

"Haiku is not a shriek, a howl, a sigh, or a yawn; rather, it is the deep breath of life."



Japanese Haiku Poet 
1882 - 1940




What is your painting, your story, your dance, or your song?  Is it a shriek?  A howl? A sigh? A yawn?  Or is it the deep breath of life?  As creative leaders we need to be creating art that produces the deep breath of life.  Art that is just a shriek or a howl leaves people feeling empty.  Art that is a sigh or a yawn puts people to sleep.  Our art needs to come from deep within and we need to breathe into it the breath of life .

Friday, November 12, 2010

Leonardo Da Vinci

Mona Lisa
"The first goal of a painter is to be able to make a simple flat surface appear like a relief . . . this is done by the correct use of light and shade.  The one who can do this deserves the most praise."



Italian Artist
1452 - 1519



The arts are about illusion.  The painter paints an object, a person or landscape and wants us to believe that it represents the real thing.  The writer tells a story and wants us to believe that what he is telling us is real.  A musician plays sounds and wants us to believe the notes tell a story.  If we are good at our craft, people will believe what we show and tell them.  Leonardo reportedly took four years to paint the Mona Lisa.  Perfecting illusion takes time.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Kahlil Gibran

"In every winter's heart there is a quivering spring, and behind the veil of each night there is a smiling dawn."



Lebanese Artist and Poet
1883 - 1931


Hope is an essential gift of living.  Without hope, we are wandering through a dark, desolate world.   In even our worst moments, we need to remember that life will get better.  As artists and writers, we need to believe that the next painting or the next poem will be our best.    If we quit now, we may never know what is around the next corner.  Keep dreaming.  Keep hoping.  Keep believing.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Zelda Fitzgerald

"Nobody has ever measured, even the poets, how much a heart can hold."



American Novelist, Artist
1900 - 1948



The heart is stronger than we think and able to recover from some of the most painful sorrows.  People through the centuries have seen and heard some of the ugliest behavior of mankind from starvation to murder to genocide.  And writers and artists have produced great work out of this pain.  When I was in college in the midst of the Vietnam war and the civil rights movement, I thought the world would explode within five years.  More the forty years later the earth still circles the sun and men and women continue to suffer and survive.  How much can your heart hold?  How much pain have you suffered?  How much love have you given?  How much of your heart can you see in your work?

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Pablo Picasso

"Art is the lie that reveals the truth."



Spanish Artist
1881 - 1973


When we stop and think about it, we realize that art is not real.  It is an attempt to create  reality, but it will never be reality.  As Picasso says, it is a lie.  Whether you are a writer or a painter, the world you are creating in your stories and pictures is not real.  But this lie can reveal the truth of the world that cannot be perceived in reality.  Now there is the paradox:  the lie reveals the truth.  

The question you must ask yourself:  Does my art reveal the truth?  Or is it only an illusion?  Only a lie?  Art that does not reveal the truth remains a lie.  What is the truth in your writing?  In your painting?  What insight do you have into life and living?






Here is one of my favorite Picasso paintings.  I have written a poem, Sing A Sad Song, about the painting and the truth that it reveals.



The Old Guitarist, 1903, Oil on Panel, 122.9 X 82.6 cm. Pablo Picasso, Spanish (1881 - 1973), The Art Institute of Chicago, Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection, 1926.253.



Monday, November 8, 2010

Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman
"I was an avid reader of history and particularly the lives of great men and women.  I found that some were born to greatness, some attained it by accident, and some worked for it."



American President, Author
1884 - 1972



As creative leaders we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before.  What do you know of the lives and works of these earlier artists, writers, musicians and storytellers?  What were the challenges they faced and the difficulties they overcame?  What creative ideas did they have that have made our work easier?  What knowledge did they have that has now been lost to the dustbins of history?  Which painters, writers and musicians are your heroes?

Most people are not born to greatness.  They usually work hard to achieve what they desire, but in the end the fame they find is often by accident.  So my advice is to work hard every day and enjoy what you do.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Piet Mondrian

Composition #2 Piet Mondrian
"Everyone knows that even a single line may convey an emotion."



Dutch Painter
1872 - 1944



The line is one of the smallest elements of a drawing or a painting.  The line is the beginning of what is to be.  And in that beginning the line conveys the emotion to come, the story to be told.  All art begins some where.  For the artist it is the line.  For the writer it is the word.  For the musician it is the note.  And the line becomes the skeleton, the core of what is created.

I recently discovered the drawings of Michael Kirby.  He has the powerful ability to convey emotion with simple lines.  Check out his blog at:




Saturday, November 6, 2010

W. S. Merwin

"We are the echo of the future."



American Poet
1927 -



Wow!  These seven words can change the way we see ourselves.  We see ourselves as flesh and bones and full of life, but in the big picture to those who come after us we are only an echo of the person we were.  We think everything that is happening to us now is important and wonder if we will be able to survive the onslaught of problems that we face.  But in the blink of an eye that is our lives we are gone.  And as artists, writers and musicians all that is left are the works we created — the footprints we left behind.  The echo of person who was us.

Friday, November 5, 2010

John Sloan

"Color is like music.  The palette is an instrument that can be orchestrated to build form."



American Artist
1871 - 1951


The arts are interrelated and interconnected.  If you are a writer, you can learn from artists and musicians.  Don't just study writers, study artists.  Learn to paint and it will make your writing better.  If you are an artist, you can learn from film and theater.  Learn to act and it might make your painting better.  Why do you think some actors turn to painting or writing when they are not engaged in making films?  Don't feel you have to limit yourself to one form of art.  Explore them all.  Do you have writer's block? Go paint a picture.  Don't know what to paint?  Play the guitar.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Finish each day and be done with it.  You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can.  Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."



American Writer & Poet
1803 - 1882



Sometimes we let our worries, doubts and fears control us.  There is nothing we can do to change yesterday and the things that happened.  Yes, we may alter the consequences by apologizing, but the action is still there.  Worry is creative imagination.  We create all kinds of scenes and stories in our minds that are not based in reality.  

My mother was a worry wart.  She was always dwelling on something that happened or was caught up in what she thought was going to happen.  And she seemed to get worse with age.  She and my father had a big fight on the morning he died of a heart attack.  He had been sick and she did not want him to go to work.  Being the stubborn person he was, he went anyway and died on the job.  My mother never forgave herself.  During the nine years after my dad died, she worried about what happened and punished herself.

So, of course, some of this worrying behavior rubbed off on me and there have  been  days when I struggled to overcome it.  But the older I have grown, the less I worry.  I have learned to accept what happens and to forgive myself.  But every now and then, worry will raise it's silly head and bite me.  

Are you a worrier?  Does your imagination run wild?  Have you learned to forgive yourself when you make a mistake?  Take heed of Emerson's valuable advice:  Begin each day anew!

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Jack Penn

"One of the secrets of life is to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks."



South African 
Surgeon, Sculptor, Author
1909 - 1996






To be human and to live with other humans is to face challenges and difficulties.  We experience death, love and heartache, not necessarily in that order.  How we respond to the challenges that life deals us is a measure of the type of person we are.  Do we pick ourselves up and make something of what has happened or do we remain in the mud, wishing to die?  As creative leaders, we have the gift of creativity which can help us turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones.  So get out your chisel and chisel away at that stumbling block in your way.  

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Dame Barbara Hepworth

"I found one had to do some work every day, even at midnight, because either you're professional or you're not."


English Sculptor
1903 - 1975



Discipline is one of the keys to being an artist or a writer.  One needs to work every day.  People often say: 'I work when I am inspired.'  If you wait until you are inspired, you will be waiting a long time.  If you work whether you are inspired or not, you will find that soon inspiration will become a constant companion.  Work opens up the creative spirit and the inspiration flows.  So my message is simple:  work every day even if it is for only 15 minutes.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Miles Davis

"Do not fear mistakes — there are none."



Jazz Musician
1926 - 1991



The older I have become; the more I subscribe to this philosophy.  Mistakes are in the minds of those who need to find fault.  When I write something, it is not a mistake.  It is where my mind wanted to go — where I am meant to go.  Perfection is an illusion.  It does not exist and if it did we would invent mistakes.  The world is not black or white.  It is all gray.  As a painter, you used a green paint when convention says you should have used red.  It is not a mistake.  Learn to give your mind free rein — to explore and change the universe.  We are where we are because it is where we need to be.  Things happen for a reason even if we don't know what the reason is.  So go ahead and make mistakes today.  Taste the favor of them in your mouth and be happy.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Albert Camus

"In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer."



French Algerian Novelist
1913 - 1960



Inside each of us is more strength than we realize.  We are stronger than we think and often it isn't until the winter of our lives that we realize how strong and capable we were.  You can do more than you think you can.  You can achieve more — paint more, write more and dance more.  And you can bear more pain and suffering than you think you can.  Don't forget to call on this strength when you need it.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Mother Teresa

"We can do no great things — only small things with great love."


1910 - 1997



Each painting we paint, each poem we write and each story we tell is an act of love.  Don't try to do great things.  Try to create small things with great love and you will accomplish great things.  It is important to love what you do and to feel that it matters — to know that you make a difference each day you paint or write.

Friday, October 29, 2010

Jackson Pollack

"Every good artist paints what he is."


American Artist
1912 - 1956



Painters and writers are attracted to the subjects they are supposed to paint and write about.  Are there certain themes that run through your work?  Do you paint the same type of picture over and over?  I paint, draw and sculpt lots of masks and it does not matter what medium I  am working in.  In my poetry you will find the themes of God, death and sex.  Pretty boring, right.  Every writer talks about God, death and sex, but what makes us unique is our approach to the subject.  I have never met a writer who talks about God in the way that I do.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Han Suyin

"There is nothing stronger in the world than gentleness."


Chinese novelist
1917 -



Are you gentle in your relationships with others or do you run over people with a Mack truck?  The myth about creative leaders is that they are temperamental and self-centered.  They abuse themselves and others.  I think true strength comes in being gentle with others and in being gentle with ourselves.  As artists and writers, we can be most abusive with ourselves.  Our art never lives up to our expectations.  The product is never as good as we saw it in our mind's eye.  We should learn to accept the gift that we have been given and not compare our work to that of other people.  We are not them.  We are each unique in the gift that we have been given.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die,
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.


American Poet/Novelist
1902 - 1967


Are you flying high or do you have a broken wing?  Have your dreams died and lost their attraction?  Then maybe it is time to find a new dream — a new desire to give life hope.  Dreams do change as we age.  What was once important is now less important and something new has to take its place.  Art is a new dream for me in the last ten years.  Writing is a dream that has now held me in its grip for over forty years.  Here is a piece on dreams I wrote when I turned forty.

"If I woke up one morning and realized that all I ever was going to be was a business man, I'd probably die.  All my dreams would be shattered.  Early in life I had many dreams.  I dreamed of being a great basketball star.  I dreamed of being a preacher.  I dreamed of saving the world from war and racism.  And I dreamed of being a great poet.  Today, I dream only of writing."  (From an essay: The Writing Years: A Look Back)