Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.

A fine work of art - music, dance, painting, story - has the power to silence the chatter in the mind and lift us to another place.

Art is to console those who are broken by life.

If we are in a general way permitted to regard human activity in the realm of the beautiful as a liberation of the soul, as a release from constraint and restriction, in short to consider that art does actually alleviate the most overpowering and tragic catastrophes by means of the creations it offers to our contemplation and enjoyment, it is the art of music which conducts us to the final summit of that ascent to freedom.

Art — the fresh feeling, new harmony, the transforming magic which by means of myth brings back the scattered distracted soul from its modern chaos — art, not politics, is the remedy.

Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.

Art has the power to render sorrow beautiful, make loneliness a shared experience, and transform despair into hope.

All art is a kind of exorcism. This is what gives art its power to change the conditions of our life.

Wir haben die Kunst, damit wir nicht an der Wahrheit zugrunde gehen.

the art of happiness is also the art of suffering well.

I think that the power of art is the power to wake us up, strike us to our depths, change us. What are we searching for when we read a novel, see a film, listen to a piece of music? We are searching, through a work of art, for something that alters us, that we weren't aware of before. We want to transform ourselves, just as Ovid's masterwork transformed me.

Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste. It's what everything else isn't.

It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious.