The arrangements we make are either pleasing or not pleasing. An explanation is not necessary. ~ Kenneth Bates

Design is the conscious and intuitive effort to impose meaningful order. ~ Victor Papanek

Art doesn't transform. It just plain forms. ~ Roy Lichtenstein

I don't paint things. I only paint the difference between things. ~ Henri Matisse 

An artist never really finishes his work; he merely abandons it. ~ Paul Valéry

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.  ~ Leonardo da Vinci 

Unfortunately, moral beauty in art - like physical beauty in a person - is extremely perishable. It is nowhere so durable as artistic or intellectual beauty. Moral beauty has a tendency to decay very rapidly into sententiousness or untimeliness. ~ Susan Sontag

Design can be on turbid days what sonar is to bats at night. It is a way to transmit signs, to ricochet symbols outside ourselves, and by that to locate the edges of things. ~ Roy Behrans  

Gesture is expressive of the artist's relationship to both subject and medium. Spontaneous gestures convey an immediate and intuitive manner of working, while a more contained gesture suggests a staid, methodical approach. ~ Jonathan Block

Good design is whatever addresses the need a society has for an image of itself. ~ Gilbert H. Chesterton

The purpose of good design is to ornament existence, not to substitute for it. ~ George Nelson

Recognizing the need is the primary condition for design. ~ Charles Eames

Who can say what is a good shape or an ugly shape? It comes back to function. It is a good shape for that purpose, or it is ugly in that relationship. The contours of a good shape will have meaning, emphasis, balance, and rhythm. ~ Kenneth Bates

It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious. ~ Alfred North Whitehead

No amount of genius can overcome a preoccupation with detail. ~ Marion Levy

Imitating paper on a computer screen is like tearing the wings off a 747 and using it as a bus on the highway. ~ Ted Nelson

No amount of genius can overcome a preoccupation with detail. ~ Marion Levy

Imitating paper on a computer screen is like tearing the wings off a 747 and using it as a bus on the highway. ~ Ted Nelson

I'm not trying to imitate nature, I'm trying to find the principles she's using. ~ Buckminster Fuller

In kindergarten we drew three daffodils that had just been picked out of the yard; and while I was drawing, my sharpened yellow pencil and the cup of the yellow daffodils gave off whiffs just alike. That the pencil doing the drawing should give off the same smell as the flower it drew seemed part of the art lesson. Children, like animals, use all their senses to discover the world. Then artists come along and discover it the same way, all over again.  ~ Eudora Welty

Beautiful evidence follows a growing concern in my work: assessing the quality of evidence and of finding out the truth. ~ Edward Tufte

In emphasizing evidential quality and beauty, I also want to move the practices of analytical design far away from the practices of propaganda, marketing, graphic design, and commercial art. ~ Edward Tufte 

Good artists copy, great artists steal. ~ Pablo Picasso

The sense of motion in painting and sculpture has long been considered as one of the primary elements of the composition. ~ Alexander Calder

There's no retirement for an artist, it's your way of living so there's no end to it. ~ Henry Moore

The artist's aim is to turn his audience into accomplices. ~ Arthur Hoestler

A clergyman once said to us, "Jealousy is a bad thing. But I must confess that I am sometimes jealous of the artist because the artist is closer to creation". (George) ~ Gilbert and George

Take the attitude of a student, never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new. ~ Og Mandino

I never paint a portrait from a photograph, because a photograph doesn't give enough information about what the person feels. ~ Francesco Clemente

The task of artists is to organize elements into a comprehensible whole by simplifying, organizing and unifying. ~ Kenneth Bates