128+ Best Quotes For Your Painting Business [2024]

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Updated: January 19th, 2023

Looking for inspirational quotes for your painting business?

Whether you’re looking for motivation, a witty instagram caption, or something to win over your team and customers, we have you covered.

We put together a list of 128+ best quotes for your painting business [2024].

Here they are:

Inspirational Quotes

"Lets build some happy little trees.” - Unknown
“The discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, write, is an effort towards wholeness.” ― Madeleine L'Engle
“It has been my personal experience that as I allow the painting to speak I become lost, it is delicious and at the same time frightening. The best ones, to me, have a life of their own.” ― Luther E. Vann
“I haven't the slightest idea what art is, but to be a painter is something of which you have to prove.” ― Wayne Thiebaud
“Writing, painting, singing- it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death’s footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives.” ― Ally Condie
"A painting to me is primarily a verb, not a noun, an event first and only secondarily an image." – Elaine de Kooning
"It is only when we are no longer fearful that we begin to create." ― J. M. W. Turner
“The only time I feel alive is when I'm painting.” ― Vincent Willem van Gogh
“The painter will produce pictures of little merit if he takes the works of others as his standard.” ― Leonardo da Vinci
“If I didn't start painting, I would have raised chickens.” ― Grandma Moses
"Art is a line around your thoughts." ― Gustav Klimt
“I refuse to be the cause of my own suffering.” ― Carrie Schmitt
"To my mind a picture should be something pleasant, cheerful and pretty. There are too many unpleasant things in life as it is, without creating still more of them." ― Pierre-Auguste Renoir
“I don't paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality.” ― Frida Kahlo
“The painter will produce pictures of little merit if he takes the works of others as his standard.” ― Leonardo da Vinci
“I wanted to paint a picture some day that people would stand before and forget that it was made of paint. I wanted it to creep into them like a bar of music and mushroom there like a soft bullet.” ― O. Henry
“The true painter must be able, before an infinite panorama, to limit himself to reproducing a single ant.” ― Salvador Dalí
"Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them." ― Anais Nin
“It was strange walking through the empty apartment. My battered purple room was gone, Brittany’s bruised blue was gone. Two coats covered everything. It was like none of it had ever happened.” ― Kimberly Novosel
“Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.” ― Camille Pissarro
“Moonlight is sculpture; sunlight is painting.” ― Nathaniel Hawthorne
“It was [Barnett] Newman who made the famously wry remark, “Aesthetics is for the artist as ornithology is for the birds.” ― Ross Wetzsteo
"Every artist was first an amateur." ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Drawing is not what one sees, but what one can make others see." ― Edgar Degas
"A true masterpiece does not tell everything." ― Albert Camus
“She was a poem and a painting too. Everything she said sounded like a song, every silence was the music too.” ― Akshay Vasu
"Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art." ― Leonardo da Vinci
"Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced." ― Leo Tolstoy
"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
"A true artist is not one who is inspired, but one who inspires others." ― Salvador Dali
"Art is unquestionably one of the purest and highest elements in human happiness. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. As the sun colours flowers, so does art colour life." ― John Lubbock
“You might as well ask an artist to explain his art, or ask a poet to explain his poem. It defeats the purpose. The meaning is only clear thorough the search.” ― Rick Riordan

Professional Quotes

“The Dutch customs once thought my pictures were photos. Where on earth did they think I could have photographed my subjects? In Hell, perhaps?” ― H.R. Giger
“Painting is just another way of keeping a diary” Pablo Picasso
"Artists are just children who refuse to put down their crayons." ― Al Hirschfeld
"My idea of heaven is to wake up, have a good breakfast, and spend the rest of the day drawing." ― Peter Falk
"Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do. Make good art." ― Neil Gaiman
“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.” ― Oscar Wilde
“I'm often painted as the bad guy, and the artistic part of me wants to hand out the brush.” ― Criss Jami
“If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint.” ― Edward Hopper
“I dream my painting and I paint my dream.” ― Vincent Willem van Gogh
"The Achilles heel of an artist lies in the hope that his art is good." ― Kapil Gupta
"You have a million excuses. Write anyway." ― Carrie Kei Heim
"There is no must in art because art is free." ― Wassily Kandinsky
“A great painter forces the world to see nature as he sees it....We paint from within outwards.” ― W. Somerset Maugham
“It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.” ― Albert Camus
“To draw something is to try to capture it FOREVER, if you really love something, you never try to keep it the way it is forever. You have to let it be free to change.” ― Cassandra Clare
“Create with the heart; build with the mind.” ― Criss Jami
“You must forget all your theories, all your ideas before the subject. What part of these is really your own will be expressed in your expression of the emotion awakened in you by the subject.” ― Henri Matisse
“From all the mishaps and missteps, my life has been presented with one persistent question, "How can I turn this burden into a blessing." Answering this question has become the guiding light in the inevitable, fruitful darkness.” ― Carrie Schmitt
“You see, for me a painting is a dramatic action in the course of which the reality finds itself split apart. For me, that dramatic action takes precedence over all other considerations. The pure plastic act is only secondary as far as I'm concerned. What counts is the drama of that plastic art, the moment at which the universe comes out of itself and meets its own destruction.” ― Francoise Gilot
“All real works of art look as though they were done in joy.” ― Robert Henri
"When I paint, I never think of selling. People fail to understand that we paint in order to experiment and to develop ourselves as we strive for greater heights." ― Edvard Munch
"While drawing I discover what I really want to say." ― Dario Fo
"Success is a worn down pencil." ― Robert Rauschenberg
“If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” ― Vincent Willem van Gogh
"In drawing, one must look for or suspect that there is more than is casually seen." ― George Bridgman
“From all the mishaps and missteps, my life has been presented with one persistent question, "How can I turn this burden into a blessing?" Answering this question has become the guiding light in the inevitable and fruitful darkness.” ― Carrie Schmitt
"A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art." ― Paul Cezanne
“There is something particularly fascinating about seeing places you know in a piece of art - be that in a film, or a photograph, or a painting.” ― Sara Sheridan
“Lets build a happy little cloud." - Unknown
“The secret to so many artists living so long is that every painting is a new adventure. So, you see, they're always looking ahead to something new and exciting. The secret is not to look back.” ― Norman Rockwell
“I find him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of certain colours.” ― Oscar Wilde
"As I work at my drawings, day after day, what seemed unattainable before is now gradually becoming possible. Slowly, I'm learning to observe and measure. I don't stand quite so helpless before nature any longer." ― Vincent van Gogh

Life Quotes

“Art is a basic human right.” ― Efrat Cybulkiewicz
“It was an unforgettable painting; it set a dense golden halo of light round the most trivial of moments, so that the moment, and all such moments, could never be completely trivial again.” ― John Fowles
"Art is longing. You never arrive, but you keep going in the hope that you will." ― Anselm Kiefer
“When you want to make the main color pure and bright, don’t just keep adding bright colors on it. Just make the colors around the spot darker and dull. It will give the scene dramatical effects. I think the life is the same.” Hiroko Sakai
"I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free." ― Georgia O’Keeffe
“What I know for sure is that a loving creative force surrounds us at all times. We are always invited to co-create with it, and when we do we connect to that which is One with the entire universe.” ― Carrie Schmitt
"If people only knew how hard I work to gain my mastery. It wouldn't seem so wonderful at all." ― Michelangelo
“Being a painter, I ought to say why in pictures people's faces are painted green and red.” ― Kazimir Severinovich Malevich
“Literature is painting, architecture, and music.” ― Yevgeny Zamyatin
“When you want to make the main color pure and bright, don't just keep adding bright colors on it. Just make the colors around the spot darker and dull. It will give the scene dramatical effects.I think the life is the same.” ― Hiroko Sakai
“A good painter, is a dead one.” ― Jean-Michel Rene Souche
“I am trying like Klee, to create something that will have a life of its own, that can put me in real danger, a danger which I willingly take on myself.” ― William S. Burroughs
“The ones who constantly make us laugh are the hardest of friends to know - for comedians are the caricatures among us.” ― Criss Jami
"The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance." ― Aristotle
"It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure." ― Albert Einstein
"Inspi 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
"Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter's soul." ― Vincent van Gogh
“I don’t paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality.” Frida Kahlo
"For me drawing is an attempt to understand what I feel about the world I live in." ― Brian Froud
“Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.” – Pablo Picasso
"Whoever wants to know something about me, they should look attentively at my pictures and there seek to recognise what I am and what I want." ― Gustav Klimt
"Anything I can not transform into something marvellous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls." ― Anais Nin
“All you need to paint is a few tools, a little instruction, and a vision in your mind.” Bob Ross
"More important than a work of art itself is what it will sow. Art can die, a painting can disappear. What counts is the seed." ― Joan Miro
“I spray the sky fast. Eyes ahead and behind. Looking for cops. Looking for anyone I don't want to be here. Paint sails and the things that kick in my head scream from can to brick. See this, see this. See me emptied onto a wall.” ― Cath crowley
"An empty canvas is full." ― Robert Rauschenberg
“SELF PORTRAIT: Throwing Armfuls of Air into the Air.” ― Jandy Nelson
“Everything we do is an act of poetry or a painting if we do it with mindfulness. Growing lettuce is poetry. Walking to the supermarket can be a painting." - Unknown
“I paint the spirit and soul of what I see.” ― Brian Froud
"When we do not trouble ourselves about whether or not something is a work of art, if we just act in each moment with composure and mindfulness, each minute of our life is a work of art. Even when we are not painting or writing, we are still creating. We are pregnant with beauty, joy, and peace, and we are making life more beautiful for many people.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh
“If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint.” Edward Hopper
“The darkness is a space of letting go, of unraveling, of allowing destruction. From these painful transitions we emerge with even stronger wings made of grit and grace.” ―. Carrie Schmitt

Positive Quotes

“Everything grows from darkness. It is the place that molds thought into form. It is the place that calls forth our creativity. It is where I have found my home.” ― Carrie Schmitt
“The atmosphere beneath is languorous, and is so tinged with azure that what artists call the middle distance partakes also of that hue, while the horizon beyond is of the deepest ultramarine.” ― Thomas Hardy
“She felt raw, a painting that wasn't dry yet. One hard nudge and she'd smear all over the place.” ― Ashley Herring Blake
"Drawing at its best is not what your eyes see but what our mind understands." ― Millard Sheets
"Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist." ― Pablo Picasso
"If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing." ― Marc Chagall
“Every now and then one paints a picture that seems to have opened a door and serves as a stepping stone to other things.” ― Pablo Picasso
"Creativity is taking the best skills and techniques from experts around you and improving upon them." ― Unknown
“Do you know why we have the sunflowers? It’s not because Vincent van Gogh suffered. It’s because Vincent van Gogh had a brother who loved him. Through all the pain, he had a tether, a connection to the world. And that is the focus of the story we need – connection.” ― Hannah Gadsby
“When I write, I disturb. When I show a film, I disturb. When I exhibit my painting, I disturb, and I disturb if I don't. I have a knack for disturbing.” ― Jean Cocteau
“If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” Vincent Van Gogh
“What keeps my heart awake is colorful silence.” ― Claude Monet
"It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see." ― Henry David Thoreau
“One of the greatest acts of violence is not allowing someone to be who she is, including oneself.” ― Carrie Schmitt
“Every canvas is a journey all its own.” – Helen Frankenthaler
“A photograph shouldn't be just a picture, it should be a philosophy.” ― Amit Kalantri
“A painted surface is a real, living form.” ― Kazimir Severinovich Malevich
“A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people.” – Edgar Degas
"Art is never finished, only abandoned." ― Leonardo da Vinci
"I started painting as a hobby when I was little. I didn’t know I had any talent. I believe talent is just a pursued interest. Anybody can do what I do." ― Bob Ross
"If you as a designer don’t believe in your design and don’t see it beyond the context of the film, instead of as a real creature in a real world then how can you expect the audience to believe it?" ― Peter Jackson
"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working." ― Pablo Picasso
“You were born an original work of art. Stay original.” - Unknown
"All these months I've been trying to find find a pattern. Trying not so much to draw hands as gestures. Not so much faces as the expressions of people." ― Vincent van Gogh
“There is something beautiful about a blank canvas, the nothingness of the beginning that is so simple and breathtakingly pure. It’s the paint that changes its meaning and the hand that creates the story. Every piece begins the same, but in the end they are all uniquely different.” ― Piper Payne
“A fine work of art - music, dance, painting, story - has the power to silence the chatter in the mind and lift us to another place.” ― Robert McKee
"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." ― Pablo Picasso
“I love to look at art, I love to look at paintings, and I almost feel like the experience isn’t complete until I’ve made something of my own.” – Cecily Brown
“Like the sundial, my paint box counts no hours but sunny ones.” ― Arthur Rackham
“You have to work with the paint and work with whatever the day brings you. If it's a wee bit dreary out, you paint it. But paint it so it makes you glad to be inside near a cozy fire.” ― Kieran Kramer
“It's often about the simple things, isn't it? Painting and photography are first about seeing, they say. Writing is about observing. Technique is secondary. Sometimes the simple is the most difficult.” ― Linda Olsson
“I've been thinking about what you said about seeing and not seeing. I had a painting teacher once tell me that the difference between a good painting and a great painting is typically five strokes. And they're usually the five boldest strokes in the painting. The question is, of course, is which five strokes?” ― Aster Flores

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Pat Walls

I'm Pat Walls and I created Starter Story - a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. We interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started and grew their businesses.

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