Art is only a way of expressing pain.
Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don’t start measuring her limbs.
Art is never chaste. We forbid it to the ignorant innocents, never allow a contact with it to those not sufficiently prepared. Yes, art is dangerous. And, if it’s chaste it isn’t art.
Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous you don’t want it.
Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.
Art can only be truly art by presenting an adequate outward symbol of some fact in the interior life.
Art can never exist without Naked Beauty displayed.
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, “It’s pretty, but is it Art?”
And so for art, being ‘impartial’ simply means: belonging to the ‘ruling’ party.[So heißt unparteiisch sein für die Kunst nur: zur herrschenden Partei gehören.]
An art whose medium is language will always show a high degree of critical creativeness, for speech is itself a critique of life: it names, it characterizes, it passes judgment, in that it creates.
All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man’s life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.
All good art is an indiscretion.