Abstract Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old abstract quotes, abstract sayings, and abstract proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

The abstract, unreal freedom of the liberal intellect was really nothing more than childish disobedience, amplified into anarchy. Roger Scruton
Just as pure abstract art is not dogmatic, neither is it decorative. Piet Mondrian
Writing is an abstract art of drawing pictures of the conscious and subconscious mind with words. Debasish Mridha
Abstract ideas are the patterns two or more memories have in common. Rudolf Flesch
All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs. Denis Diderot
Abstract knowledge is always useful, sooner or later. Robert A. Heinlein
It abstract art should be enjoyed just as music is enjoyed after a while you may like it or you may not. Jackson Pollock
Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings who represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it. Mahatma Gandhi
None of the abstract concepts comes closer to fulfilled utopia than that of eternal peace. Theodor Adorno
Even abstract shapes must have a likeness. Willem de Kooning
Abstract pictures are fictive models, because they make visible a reality that we can neither see nor describe, but whose existence we can postulate. Gerhard Richter
The abstract has no emotional content the abstract is more powerful the more abstract it is Cecil Balmond
The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real. Lucian Freud
Abstract literally means to draw from or separate. In this sense every artist is abstract a realistic or nonobjective approach makes no difference. The result is what counts. Richard Diebenkorn
Abstract art is uniquely modern. It is a fundamentally romantic response to modern life - rebellious, individualistic, unconventional, sensitive, irritable. Robert Motherwell
There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality. Pablo Picasso
In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. Sol Lewitt
All paintings are abstract ideas, not representations of a true reality. Mike Svob
Abstract words are ancient coins whose concrete images in the give and take of talk have worn away with use. Julian Jaynes
It takes abstract thinking to see how greed can lead to prosperity, but it takes wishful thinking to claim that violence can lead to charity. Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski
You can't look at abstract art without thinking. Patricia Cole
Abstract art has helped us to experience the emotional power inherent in pure form. Anton Ehrenzweig
The abstract way we think is really grounded in the concrete, bodily world much more than we thought. John Bargh
In the abstract conception of universal wrong, all concrete responsibility vanishes. Theodor Adorno
The only object of theoretical physics is to calculate results that can be compared with experiment... it is quite unnecessary that any satisfactory description of the whole course of the phenomena should be given. Paul Dirac
Color is for me the purest form of expression, the purest abstract reality. Jim Hodges
An abstract title suggests another value to the subject, perhaps an artistic quality that sets the viewers' sensitivities into action. Robert Genn
To abstract is to draw out the essence of a matter. To abstract in art is to separate certain fundamentals from irrelevant material which surrounds them. Ben Shahn
The inconceivable idea of the sun. / You must become an ignorant man again / And see the sun again with an ignorant eye / And see it clearly in the idea of it. Vachel Lindsay
I believe that nothing can be more abstract, more unreal than we actually see. Giorgio Morandi
The nature of what we call democracy is sadly no longer an abstract discussion beloved of political science professors. Richard Wolfe
Objective painting is not a good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense. Georgia O'Keeffe
What a funny thing painting is. The abstract painters always insist on their connection with the visible reality, while the so-called figurative artists insist that what they really care about is the abstract qualities of life. Marlene Dumas
I've been doing a lot of abstract painting lately, extremely abstract. No brush, no paint, no canvas, I just think about it. Steven Wright
To bring my own prejudice into the open, abstract expressionism is a genre I have always distrusted, mainly because so much of it seems to me to express violent reactionary anarchism, a repudiating not so much of the traditions as of the community of painting. Northyrop Frye
The difference between non-objective and abstract painting may be suggested by the difference between mathematics and music. Northrop Frye
Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found. Edmund Burke
A product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered. Al Capp
The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract. Paul Klee
I think the greatest feature of a lot of the images is that they're not completely explainable and that they can have different meanings for different people. Keith Haring
The kind of images I'm drawing has changed a lot. I've become much more conscious of who's seeing them and thinking about them: realizing that the drawings are a great vehicle for getting ideas across, not just abstract ideas, but actual ideas or philosophies. Keith Haring
I'd gone from the abstract drawings to the word pieces, but I decided that I was going to draw again. But if I was going to draw again, I couldn't go back to the abstract drawings; they had to have some connection to the real world. Keith Haring
I have found another kind of enjoyment through illness that is more important and unmeasurable. I have found that I am closer to abstract things in my sickness than in health. Khalil Gibran
Black and white are abstract; color is not. Looking at a black and white photograph, you are already looking at a strange world. Joel Sternfeld
I am searching for abstract ways of expressing reality, abstract forms that will enlighten my own mystery. Eric Cantona
It is often my nature to be abstract, hidden in plain sight, or nowhere at all. Gerard Way
One of the things I like about music is its abstract art, totally abstract, where you can convey an emotion, which I find amazing. Bernard Sumner
How many people make themselves abstract to appear profound. The most useful part of abstract terms is the shadows they create to hide a vacuum. Joseph Joubert
We are all hungry and thirsty for concrete images. Abstract art will have been good for one thing: to restore its exact virginity to figurative art. Salvador Dali
I hardly need to abstract things, for each object is unreal enough already, so unreal that I can only make it real by means of painting. Max Beckmann
Life is abstract art, and it’s up to you to make sense of it. Talismanist Giebra
The form itself, even if completely abstract ... has its own inner sound. Wassily Kandinsky
Abstraction allows man to see with his mind what he cannot see physically with his eyes. Arshile Gorky
Abstract art is not the creation of another reality but the true vision of reality. Piet Mondrian
Abstraction generally involves implication, suggestion, and mystery, rather than obvious description. Robert Genn
Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. Jackson Pollock
Abstract art is a creative interplay between the conscious and the unconscious, with the conscious mind making all the final decisions and in control throughout. Lawren Harris
I understand abstract art as an attempt to feed the imagination with a world built through the basic sensations of the eyes. Jean Helion