The painter who draws merely by practice and by eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies every thing placed in front of it without being conscious of their existence.

When you take your attention into the present moment, a certain alertness arises. You become more conscious of what’s around you, but also, strangely, a sense of presence that is both within and without.

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

Music is the art of the prophets and the gift of God.

The answer is, who you are cannot be defined through thinking or mental labels or definitions, because it’s beyond that. It is the very sense of being, or presence, that is there when you become conscious of the present moment. In essence, you and what we call the present moment are, at the deepest level, one.

Art is going to make a bigger comeback than ever. That’s the upside to things getting challenging.

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain; awake but one, and in, what myriads rise!

The poet ranks far below the painter in the representation of visible things, and far below the musician in that of invisible things.

The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person.

He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

I wish I could make music about politics. I feel like it’s such an art and a talent that I admire tremendously, but when I step into the studio, I step out of the real world, and it’s therapeutic.

Yes, there is a terrible moral in ‚Dorian Gray‘ – a moral which the prurient will not be able to find in it, but it will be revealed to all whose minds are healthy. Is this an artistic error? I fear it is. It is the only error in the book.

My focus is my art, and that’s what I love to do. I have to be really passionate in order to do something. I’ve turned down many things that I just didn’t believe in.

Art is not a thing; it is a way.

Real art has been… what’s the word? Kidnapped? No, that’s not it. But, OK, kidnapped by business.

The mark of all good art is not that the thing done is done exactly or finely, for machinery may do as much, but that it is worked out with the head and the workman’s heart.

God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.

All art is but imitation of nature.

Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it ‚the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.‘ The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of ‚Artist.‘

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.

I think the brain is essentially a computer and consciousness is like a computer program. It will cease to run when the computer is turned off. Theoretically, it could be re-created on a neural network, but that would be very difficult, as it would require all one’s memories.

When you practice gratefulness, there is a sense of respect toward others.

I have been practicing archery for a long time; a bow and arrow helps me to unwind.

Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have hear below.

I need one of those baby monitors from my subconscious to my consciousness so I can know what the hell I’m really thinking about.

My thought is me: that is why I cannot stop thinking. I exist because I think I cannot keep from thinking.

I busted a mirror and got seven years bad luck, but my lawyer thinks he can get me five.

Art is man’s expression of his joy in labor.

What I’ve discovered is that in art, as in music, there’s a lot of truth-and then there’s a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth, but he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for, my moment. It’s the moment that the audience falls in love.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

Diplomacy is the art of saying ‚Nice doggie‘ until you can find a rock.

When you learn about the teaching and the practice of another tradition, you always have a chance to understand your own teaching and practice.

Great art is the contempt of a great man for small art.

I have been very interested and intrigued and congratulatory toward President Bush and his paintings.

Any artist, the work you do, if it’s a painting or if it’s a performance, you hope it translates to a common denominator with the people that they see something in their own life in there. Or they see something in somebody else’s life. That’s what’s fun about sharing art.

When art dresses in worn-out material it is most easily recognized as art.

We have listened too long to the courtly Muses of Europe.

No person who is not a great sculptor or painter can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder.

The X is an amazing car, but we kind of got carried away with the art and technology. Obviously, you want great art. You want great technology. But we did get a little distracted from our mission, which was to advance the cause of electric vehicles. And it probably delayed us a little bit with the Model 3 as well.

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.

I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.

The painter who is familiar with the nature of the sinews, muscles, and tendons, will know very well, in giving movement to a limb, how many and which sinews cause it; and which muscle, by swelling, causes the contraction of that sinew; and which sinews, expanded into the thinnest cartilage, surround and support the said muscle.

A critic should be taught to criticise a work of art without making any reference to the personality of the author.

Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all which Philosophy distinguishes as the ‚Not Me,‘ that is, both nature and art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name, ‚Nature.‘

I’m such a good lover because I practice a lot on my own.

I’m born with a pencil in my hand. I did lots of sketching.

He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion.

I have to practice to be good at guitar. I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.

Sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day.

I had a lot of resistance, and not just to fame. I was always conscious of not changing.

Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.

We feel and know that we are eternal.

I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

There’s something about being in front of a live audience that’s fun. It’s a really interesting, very electric, very alive, and intense experience, and you can’t get it anywhere else. And I’ve been doing it since I was 23, so it’s part of my being – it’s part of my fabric as a person.

Opposite to godliness is atheism in profession, and idolatry in practice. Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind, that it never had many professors.

Anyone who is practicing understanding and compassion can exemplify true power. Anyone can be a Buddha.

To master a new technology, you have to play with it.