A Quote by Immanuel Kant

Art is purposiveness without purpose.

Immanuel Kant

Quote Topics

Art Art Is Purpose Without

Quote Author

Immanuel Kant
German - Philosopher
April 22, 1724 - February 12, 1804

Art for art's sake, with no purpose, for any purpose perverts art. But art achieves a purpose which is not its own. (1804)

Benjamin Constant

If being an anti-art artist is difficult, being an anti-art art historian is a hard position indeed. His doctrinal revolutionism brings forth nothing new in art but reenacts upheavals on the symbolic plane of language. It provides the consoling belief that overthrows are occurring as in the past, that barriers to creation are being surmounted, and that art is pursuing a radical purpose, even if it is only the purpose of doing away with itself.

Harold Rosenberg

We've reached a point where we are not a very empathetic people, and art without empathy is art without an audience. My basic viewpoint is that without art we're alone.

Jamake Highwater

To have meaning, our lives require both passion and purpose. A life without passion is like a furnace without fuel, and without purpose, like a ship without a rudder.

Mardy Grothe

Art is beautiful but it is hard, like a religion without a purpose.

Gunter Brus

Art without color would lose much of its purpose.

Andrew Loomis

Do not think about or do anything without a spiritual purpose, whereby it is done for God. For If you travel without purpose, you shall labor in vain.

Marcus Eremita

Some people flinch when you talk about art in the context of the needs of society thinking you are introducing something far too common for a discussion of art. Why should art have a purpose and a use? Art shouldn't be concerned with purpose and reason and need, they say. These are improper. But from the very beginning, it seems to me, stories have indeed been meant to be enjoyed, to appeal to that part of us which enjoys good form and good shape and good sound.

Chinua Achebe

Is it reasonable to assume a purposiveness in all the parts of nature and to deny it to the whole?

Immanuel Kant

The purpose of pure science is to observe phenomena and to trace their laws; the purpose of art is to produce, modify, or destroy. Strictly speaking there is no such thing as applied science, for, the moment the attempt is made to apply, science passes into the realm of art.

Joseph William Mellor

A great purposelessness has descended upon modern civilizations. People at large have lost any sense of the meaning and purpose of life; and without an understanding of our own purpose, there can be no true commitment. Whether that commitment is to marriage, family, study, work, God, relationships, or the simple resolutions of our lives, it will be almost impossible to fulfill without a clear and practical understanding of our purpose. Commitment and purpose go hand in hand.

Matthew Kelly

... one of art photography's most vigorous enterprises--[is] concentrating on victims, on the unfortunate--but without the compassionate purpose that such a project is expected to serve.

Susan Sontag

There's a difference between a job and purpose. If I did my job without purpose, I wouldn't have the intention to put things out there that should be heard. But I have a purpose.

Jeannie Mai

A man with a half volition goes backwards and forwards, and makes no way on the smoothest road; a man with a whole volition advances on the roughest, and will reach his purpose, if there be even a little worthiness in it. The man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder - a waif, a nothing, a no man. Have a purpose in life and having it, throw such strength of mind and muscle into your work as God has given you.

Thomas Carlyle

Movies are a combination of art and mass medium, but television is so single in its purpose-selling-that it operates without that painful, poignant mixture of aspiration and effort and compromise.