inspiration from quotes

I love to read, reread, and collect quotes which make me think and act.
Here are a few my favourites, so far.

If I don’t have blue, I’ll just use red.

Pablo Picasso

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact.  Everything we see is a perspective not the truth.

Marcus Aurelius

How difficult it is to be simple.

Vincent van Gogh

I hope to arrive to my death, late, in love and a little drunk.

Atticus

Don’t wait for inspiration, it comes while working.

Henri Matisse

If there are waves, go surfing.

Surfers proverb

If there’s no wind, row.

Latin Proverb

DO N’T
QU IT

Do or do not. There is no try.

Yoda

They did not know it was impossible so they did it.

Mark Twain

I have a dream.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Believe you can and you’re halfway there.

Theodore Roosevelt

If you can dream it, you can do it.

Walt Disney

Logic will get you from A to B.  Imagination will take you everywhere.

Albert Einstein

If you get tired, learn to rest, not to quit.

Banksy

Do more things that make you forget to check your phone.

an addict

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.

Walt Disney

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

I paint what I like, when I like, and where I like.

David Hockney

When you’re being creative, nothing is wrong.

John Cleese

Judge me for how good my good ideas are, not how bad my bad ideas are.

Matt Damon & Ben Affleck when writing Good Will Hunting

The brave may not live forever – But the cautious do not live at all.

Richard Branson

All great contemporary artists, schooled or not, are essentially self-taught and are de-skilling like crazy. I don’t look for skill in art… skill has nothing to do with technical proficiency… I’m interested in people who rethink skill, who redefine or reimagine it: an engineer, say, who builds rockets from rocks.

Jerry Saltz, art critic

Without labor, nothing prospers.

Sophocles

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

Stephen King

Nothing will stop you from being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake.

John Cleese

Whatever you’re doing today, do it with the confidence of a 4 year old in a batman t-shirt.

😉

I love learning, but hate being taught.

Winston Churchill

Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.

Benjamin Franklin

Silence your mind, pick up a pencil and draw.

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.

Pablo Picasso

Paint first, then think.

David M. Kessler

Don’t talk. I can’t hear myself see.

Jerry Saltz, art critic on looking at art

It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.

Pablo Picasso

If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful after all.

Michelangelo

Everything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.

J.K. Rowling

Don’t look back, you’re not going that way.

Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.

Will Rogers

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.  Art is knowing which ones to keep.

Scott Adams

You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.

Maya Angelou

The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

Ernest Hemingway

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

Soren Kierkegaard

I would rather die of passion than of boredom.

Vincent van Gogh

Liever opgebrand dan uitgedoofd.

‘rather burnt out than extinguished’

Jules Deelder, Dutch poet

Don’t bend. Don’t water it down. Don’t try to make it logical. Don’t edit your own soul according to fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.

Franz Kafka

Impossible is just an opinion.

Paulo Coelho

If you don’t build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build theirs.

Tony Gaskins

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.

Steve Jobs

Every disadvantage has its advantage.

Johan Cruijf

The big lesson in life, baby, is never be scared of anyone or anything.

Frank Sinatra

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

George Bernard Shaw

Whatever you’re meant to do, do it now.  The conditions are always impossible.

Doris Lessing

Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.

Winston Churchill

If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.

James Whistler

Artists give people something they didn’t know they were missing.

Daniel Pink

Energy and art go where they will.

Jerry Saltz, art critic

Comparison is the death of joy.

Mark Twain

Everything is hard before it is easy.

Goethe

If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time.

Steve Jobs

Work every day. No matter what has happened the day or night before, get up and bite on the nail.

Ernest Hemingway

Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Walk beside me; just be my friend.

Albert Camus

If you think you’re too small to make a difference, you haven’t spent a night with a mosquito.

African proverb

Drawing is rather like playing chess, your mind races ahead of the moves that you eventually make.

David Hockney

I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I’m free.

Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα. Δε φοβούμαι τίποτα. Είμαι λέφτερος.

Nikos Kazantzakis

You only see it when you understand it.

Je gaat het pas zien als je het doorhebt.

Johan Cruijf

The most important decision you will ever make is to be in a good mood.

Voltaire

People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.

Winnie the Pooh

We are our choices.

J.P. Sartre

Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson