A Quote by Roger Scruton

Creativity is not enough... the skill of the true artist is to show the real in the light of the ideal and so transfigure it.

Roger Scruton

Quote Topics

Artist Creativity Enough Ideal Light Real Show Skill True True Art True Artist

Quote Author

Roger Scruton
English - Philosopher
February 27, 1944 - January 12, 2020

It is sometimes said that the tragedy of an artist's life is that he cannot realise his ideal. But the true tragedy that dogs the steps of most artists is that they realise their ideal too absolutely. For, when the ideal is realised, it is robbed of its wonder and its mystery, and becomes simply a new starting-point for an ideal that is other than itself.

Oscar Wilde

The ideal, after all, is true than the real: for the ideal is the eternal element in perishable things.

Henri Frederic Amiel

I think an artist can fit under a few different categories depending on how much you explore your creativity. It can vary from artist to artist from musician to performer to vocalist. I thrive on creativity. So in the long run I want to be an all around entertainer.

Christina Aguilera

Blessed is he who carries within himself a God, an ideal, and who obeys it: ideal of art, ideal of science, ideal of the gospel virtues, therein lie the springs of great thoughts and great actions; they all reflect light from the Infinite.

Louis Pasteur

One can be a great artist without being a great technician. There have been many famous ballet stars who did not have the ideal body or total mastery of all aspects of the art form, but on the stage they possessed magnetism-true artistry, by which I mean a charismatic quality. You can work with a coach to try and develop it, but a true artist has the ability to express his inner feelings naturally.

Fernando Bujones

People who have never had an ideal may hope to find one; they are in a better state than the people who allow the circumstances of life to break their ideal. To fall beneath one's ideal is to lose one's track in life; then confusion rises in the mind, and that light which one should hold high becomes covered and obscured, so that it cannot shine out to light one's path.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

At the root of creativity is an impulse to understand, to make sense of random and often unrelated details. For me, photography provides an intersection of time, space, light, and emotional stance. One needs to be still enough, observant enough, and aware enough to recognize the life of the materials, to be able to 'hear through the eyes'.

Paul Caponigro

Greek architecture taught me that the column is where the light is not, and the space between is where the light is. It is a matter of no-light, light, no-light, light. A column and a column brings light between them. To make a column which grows out of the wall and which makes its own rhythm of no-light, light, no-light, light: that is the marvel of the artist.

Louis Kahn

The human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist; it is by the ideal that we live.

Victor Hugo

All the controversialists who have become conscious of the real issue are already saying of our ideal exactly what used to be said of the Socialists' ideal. They are saying that private property is too ideal not to be impossible. They are saying that private enterprise is too good to be true. They are saying that the idea of ordinary men owning ordinary possessions is against the laws of political economy and requires an alteration in human nature.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom while discouragement often nips it at the bud. Creativity is now something we can turn on and off like a faucet. It is an experience and expression in our lives that must be nurtured. This nurturing process means that creativity is at once a skill, an art, and a life-style.

Alex Faickney Osborn

There's a paradox in the notion that creativity should be a habit. We think of creativity as a way of keeping everything fresh and new, while habit implies routine and repetition. That paradox intrigues me because it occupies the place where creativity and skill rub up against each other.

Twyla Tharp

Longing for the ideal while criticizing the real is evidence of immaturity. On the other hand, settling for the real without striving for the ideal is complacency. Maturity is living with the tension.

Rick Warren

The refusal to be creative is an act of self-will and is counter to our true nature. When we are open to our creativity, we are opening to God: good, orderly direction. As we pursue our creative fulfillment, all elements of our life move toward harmony. As we strengthen our creativity, we strengthen our connection to the Creator within. Artists love other artists. Our relationship to God is co-creative, artist to artist. It is God's will for us to live in creative abundance.