A Quote by Honore de Balzac

Art's greatest efforts are invariably a timid counterfeit of Nature.

Honore de Balzac

Quote Topics

Art Counterfeit Efforts Greatest Invariably Nature Timid

Quote Author

Honore de Balzac
French - Novelist
May 20, 1799 - August 18, 1850

Real art, like the wife of an affectionate husband, needs no ornaments. But counterfeit art, like a prostitute, must always be decked out. The cause of production of real art is the artist's inner need to express a feeling that has accumulated...The cause of counterfeit art, as of prostitution, is gain. The consequence of true art is the introduction of a new feeling into the intercourse of life... The consequences of counterfeit art are the perversion of man, pleasure which never satisfies, and the weakening of man's spiritual strength.

Leo Tolstoy

A man can counterfeit love, he can counterfeit faith, he can counterfeit hope and all the other graces, but it is very difficult to counterfeit humility.

Dwight L. Moody

Experience has shown us that attempts to control the Internet will invariably fail. We should be instructed by the failed efforts of China to regulate political content, the efforts of America to regulate Internet gambling, or the efforts of Australia to regulate certain speech. By its very nature, the Internet will always resist such controls.

Miriam Defensor-Santiago

In efforts to soar above our nature, we invariably fall below it.

Edgar Allan Poe

The counterfeit and counterpart of Nature is reproduced in art.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The greatest productions of art, whether painting, music, sculpture or poetry, have invariably this quality-something approaching the work of God.

D.T. Suzuki

Nature has but one plan of operation, invariably the same in the smallest things as well as in the largest, and so often do we see the smallest masses selected for use in Nature, that even enormous ones are built up solely by fitting these together. Indeed, all Nature's efforts are devoted to uniting the smallest parts of our bodies in such a way that all things whatsoever, however diverse they may be, which coalesce in the structure of living things construct the parts by means of a sort of compendium.

Marcello Malpighi

Seoul has many good tourism resources, including nature, history and people. To take advantage of these, we have to make efforts, to preserve nature, restore historic properties and support the nation's dynamic culture and art.

Park Won-soon

Many people seem to think that art is a luxury to be imported and tacked on to life. Art springs out of the very stuff that life is made of. Most of our young authors start to write a story and make a few observations from nature to add local color. The results are invariably false and hollow. Art must spring out of the fullness and richness of life.

Willa Cather

Every human being's essential nature is perfect and faultless, but after years of immersion in the world we easily forget our roots and take on a counterfeit nature.

Laozi

Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.

Stephen Covey

It's probably easier and cheaper to counterfeit hundred-dollar bills than it is to counterfeit Bitcoin.

Naval Ravikant

Flattery is counterfeit, and like counterfeit money, it will eventually get you into trouble if you pass it to someone else.

Dale Carnegie

I like nature but not its substitutes... Mondrian opposed art to nature saying that art is artificial and nature is natural. I do not share this opinion... Art's origins are natural.

Hans Arp

Copying is an art in itself, demanding the greatest technical ability, especially in watercolour. However well done, the copy invariably lacks that nascent, ineffable, but definite quality, provided by the furious enthusiasm with which an original is created, an essential spontaneity that defies reproduction.