Starting a creative journey may be thrilling and scary at the same time. The groundbreaking book “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron provides a thorough and revolutionary curriculum for developing artistic expression for those looking for direction and inspiration. This book is an absolute treasure chest of knowledge, and analysis from a range of sources that Cameron uses to bolster her beliefs. In this blog post,I am going to share some of my favorite quotes from the book. These are not Julia Cameron’s words, but rather those of other artists, whom she quotes in their books.
Man is asked to make of himself what he is supposed to become to fulfill his destiny -PAUL TILLICH
Why indeed must “God” be a noun? Why not a verb… the most active and dynamic of all? -MARY DALY
The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel. -PIET MONDRIAN
God must become an activity in our consciousness. – JOEL S. GOLDSMITH
It is the creative potential itself in human beings that is the image of God. -MARY DALY
Every blade of grass has its Angel that bends over it and whispers, “Grow, grow. ” THE TALMUD
Great improvisers are like priests. They are thinking only of their god. -STÉPHANE RAPPELLI
What we play is life. -LOUIS ARMSTRONG
Creativity is harnessing universality and making it flow through your eyes. – PETER KOESTENBAUM
I paint not by sight but by faith.
Faith gives you sight. -AMOS FERGUSON
Why should we all use our creative power … ? Because there is nothing
that makes people so generous, joyful, lively, bold, and compassionate, so indifferent to fighting and the accumulation of objects and money – BRENDA UELAND
The purpose of art is not a rarified, intellectual distillate—it is life,
intensified, brilliant life. – ALAIN ARIAS-MISSON
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters, compared to what lies within us. – RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Words are a form of action, capable of influencing change. INGRID BENGIS
You need to claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. ANNE-WILSON SCHAEF
A mind too active is no mind at all.- THEODORE ROETHKE
The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their
significance to ourselves, they find their own order … the continuous
thread of revelation. – EUDORA WELTY
Poetry often enters through the window of irrelevance. – M. C. RICHARDS
Like an ability or a muscle, hearing your inner wisdom is strengthened
by doing it. – ROBBIE GASS
Painting is just another way of keeping a diary. – PABLO PICASSO
Experience, even for a painter, is not exclusively visual. – WALTER MEIGS
The most potent muse of all is our own inner child. – STEPHEN NACHMANOVITCH
At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities. – JEAN HOUSTON
The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves. – C. G. JUNG
Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. – PABLO PICASSO
I believe that if it were left to artists to choose their own labels, most would choose none. – BEN SHAHN
We have been taught to believe that negative equals realistic and positive equals unrealistic. – SUSAN JEFFERS
Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand. – BARUCH SPINOZA
To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong. – JOSEPH CHILTON PEARCE
Affirmations are like prescriptions for certain aspects of yourself you want to change. – JERRY FRANKHAUSER
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. – C. G. JUNG
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler. – HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Make your own recovery the first priority in your life. – ROBIN NORWOOD
Every time we say Let there be! in any form, something happens. – STELLA TERRILL MANN
Undoubtedly, we become what we envisage. CLAUDE M. BRISTOL
Every time you don’t follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness. – SHAKTI GAWAIN
Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose. – ELISABETH KÜBLER-ROSS
What I am actually saying is that we need to be willing to let our intuition guide us, and then be willing to follow that guidance directly and fearlessly. – SHAKTI GAWAIN
Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going too fast—you also miss the sense of where you are going and why. – EDDIE CANTOR
Whatever God’s dream about man may be, it seems certain it cannot come true unless man cooperates.- STELLA TERRILL MANN
To believe in God or in a guiding force because someone tells you to is the height of stupidity. We are given senses to receive our information with. With our own eyes, we see, and with our skin, we feel. With our intelligence, it is intended that we understand. But each person must puzzle it out for himself or herself.- SOPHY BURNHA
Think of yourself as an incandescent power, illuminated and perhaps forever talked to by God and his messengers. – BRENDA UELAND
No matter how slow the film, Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer It has chosen. – MINOR WHITE
Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music—the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls, and interesting people. Forget yourself. HENRY MILLER
The noun of self becomes a verb. This flashpoint of creation in the present moment is where work and play merge. – STEPHEN NACHMANOVITCH
The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. – JACKSON POLLOCK
I shut my eyes in order to see. – PAUL GAUGUIN
When a man takes one step toward God, God takes more steps toward that man than there are sands in the worlds of time. – THE WORK OF THE CHARIOT
The universe will reward you for taking risks on its behalf. – SHAKTI GAWAIN
A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind. – ALBERT SZENTGYORGYI
Did you ever observe to whom the accidents happen?
Chance favors only the prepared mind. -LOUIS PASTEUR
Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish.- OVID
Desire, ask, believe, receive. – STELLA TERRILL MANN
Genuine beginnings begin within us, even when they are brought to our attention by external opportunities.- WILLIAM BRIDGES
Since you are like no other being ever created since the beginning of time, you are incomparable. – BRENDA UELAND
I have made my world and it is a much better world than I ever saw outside. – LOUISE NEVELSON
What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. – ALBERT CAMUS
The words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels. – HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything. – EUGÈNE DELACROIX
Take your life into your own hands and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame. – ERICA JONG
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. – MARTHA GRAHAM
Whenever I have to choose between two evils, I always like to try the one I haven’t tried before. – MAE WEST
Creative work is play. It is free speculation using the materials of one’s chosen form. – STEPHEN NACHMANOVITCH
Creativity is … seeing something that doesn’t exist already. You need to find out how you can bring it into being and that way be a playmate with God. – MICHELE SHEA
Each painting has its own way of evolving…. When the painting is finished, the subject reveals itself. – WILLIAM BAZIOTES
Eliminate something superfluous from your life. Break a habit. Do something that makes you feel insecure. – PIERO FERRUCCI
Stop thinking and talking about it and there is nothing you will not be able to know. – ZEN PARADIGM
All the arts we practice are apprenticeships. The big art is our life. – M. C. RICHARDS
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult. SENECA
To become truly immortal, a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken, it will enter the realms of childhood visions and dreams. – GIORGIO DE CHIRICO
The center that I cannot find is known to my unconscious mind. – W. H. AUDEN
All you need to do to receive guidance is to ask for it and then listen. – SANAYA ROMAN
We are always doing something, talking, reading, listening to the radio, and planning what is next. The mind is kept naggingly busy on some easy, unimportant external thing all day. BRENDA UELAND
In a dark time, the eye begins to see. – THEODORE ROETHKE
When the soul wishes to experience something she throws an image of the experience out before her and enters into her own Image. -MEISTER ECKHART
I learned that the real creator was my inner Self, the Shakti…. That desire to do something is God inside talking through us. – MICHELE SHEA
Expect your every need to be met, expect the answer to every problem, expect abundance on every level, expect
to grow spiritually. – EILEEN CADDY
Look and you will find it—what is unsought will go undetected. – SOPHOCLES
It is within my power either to serve God or not to serve him. Serving him, I add to my own good and the good of the whole world. Not serving him, I forfeit my own good and deprive the world of that good, which was in my power to create.- LEO TOLSTOY
Often people attempt to live their lives backwards: they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want so that they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then, do what you need to do, in order to have what you want. – MARGARET YOUNG
There is the risk you cannot afford to take, and there is the risk you cannot afford not to take. – PETER DRUCKER
You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm. – COLETTE
Money is God in action. -RAYMOND CHARLES BARKER
The more we learn to operate in the world based on trust in our intuition, the stronger our channel will be and the more money we will have. – SHAKTI GAWAIN
Money will come when you are doing the right thing. – MIKE PHILLIPS
Always leave enough time in your life to do something that makes you happy, satisfied, even joyous. That has more of an effect on economic well-being than any other single factor. – PAUL HAWKEN
I’d rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck. – EMMA GOLDMAN
True life is lived when tiny changes occur. – LEO TOLSTOY
As an artist, it is central to be unsatisfied! This isn’t greed, though it might be appetite. – LAWRENCE CALCAGNO
Listening is a form of accepting. – STELLA TERRILL MANN
Cerebration is the enemy of originality in art.- MARTIN RITT
Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how.
The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark. – AGNES DE MILLE
We cannot escape fear. We can only transform it into a companion that accompanies us on all our exciting adventures….
Take a risk a day-one small or bold stroke that will make you feel great once you have done it. – SUSAN JEFFERS
There is no must in art because art is free. – WASSILY KANDINSKY
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars. -LES BROWN
With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity. – KESHAVAN NAIR
Trust in yourself. Your perceptions are often far more accurate than you are willing to believe. – CLAUDIA BLACK
When you start a painting, it is somewhat outside you. At the conclusion, you seem to move inside the painting, – FERNANDO BOTERO
When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate. -C. G. JUNG
I shall become a master in this art only after a great deal of practice. ERICH FROMM
Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what people fear most. – FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
Imagination is more important than knowledge. – ALBERT EINSTEIN
Surround yourself with people who respect and treat you well. – CLAUDIA BLACK
To the rationally minded the mental processes of the intuitive appear to work backwards. – FRANCES WICKES
Trust that still, small voice that says, “This might work and I’ll try it.” DIANE MARIECHILD
Man can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown. – CLAUDE BERNARD
I cannot expect even my own art to provide all of the answers—only to hope it keeps asking the right questions. -GRACE HARTIGAN
Art is a technique of communication. The image is the most complete technique of all communication. – CLAES OLDENBURG
The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless. – JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
Satisfaction of one’s curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life. – LINUS PAULING
Art? You just do it. – MARTIN RITT
No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently. – AGNES DE MILLE
Your desire is your prayer. Picture the fulfillment of your desire now and feel its reality and you will experience the joy of the answered prayer.- DR. JOSEPH MURPHY
Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist. – RENÉ-FRANÇOISGHISLAIN MAGRITTE
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. – ANAÏS NIN
Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out your horn. – CHARLIE PARKER
Be really whole, And all things will come to you. -LAO-TZU
Learning is movement from moment to moment. – J. KRISHNAMURTI
We learn to do something by doing it. There is no other way.- JOHN HOLT
Saying no can be the ultimate self-care. – CLAUDIA BLACK
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity – ALBERT EINSTEIN
The life that is not examined is not worth living. -PLATO
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. – JALAL UD-DIN RUMI
Truly, it is in the darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us.- MEISTER ECKHART
The unconscious wants truth. It ceases to speak to those who want something else more than truth. – ADRIENNE RICH
Real learning comes about when the competitive spirit has ceased. – J. KRISHNAMURTI
Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things. – EDGAR DEGAS
He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened. -LAO-TZU
I will tell you what I have learned myself. For me, a long five or six mile walk helps. And one must go alone and every day. – BRENDA UELAND
How often—even before we began—have we declared a task “impossible”? And how often have we construed a picture of ourselves as being inadequate? … A great deal depends upon the thought patterns we choose and on the persistence with which we affirm them. – PIERO FERRUCCI
It’s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. – SOMERSET MAUGHAM
Art happens-no hovel is safe from it, no prince may depend upon it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about. – James Whistler
The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery. – FRANCIS BACON
The function of the creative artist consists of making laws, not in following laws already made. – FERRUCCIO BUSONI
What moves men of genius, or rather what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough. – EUGTNE DELACROIX
No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination. – EDWARD HOPPER
You are lost the instant you know what the result will be. -JUAN GRIS
To keep the body in good health is a duty…. Otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear. BUDDHA
Here in this body are the sacred rivers: here are the sun and moon as well as all the pilgrimage places…. I have not encountered another temple as blissful as my own body. – SARAHA
God bless the roots! Body and soul are one. – THEODORE ROETHKE
Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes it visible.
The moon develops creativity as chemicals develop photographic images. – NORMA JEAN HARRIS
Adventures don’t begin until you get into the forest. That first step in an act of faith. -MICKEY HART
Do not fear mistakes—there are none. – MILES DAVIS
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. – ALBERT EINSTEIN
What shakes the eye but the invisible? – THEODORE ROETHKE
Play is the exultation of the possible. – MARTIN BUBER
One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. – ANDRÉ GIDE
Creation is only the projection into form of that which already exists. – SHRIMAD BHAGAVATAM
A painting is never finished—it simply stops in interesting places. – PAUL GARDNER
In “The Artist’s Way,” Julia Cameron encourages us to embrace diverse voices and perspectives, reflecting on creativity as a universal force. Each quote serves as a beacon for self-discovery and artistic expression. Whether seeking inspiration, validation, or a deeper understanding of the creative journey, these words remind us that artistry transcends boundaries, enriching our lives and the world. Embrace these insights, let them stir your imagination, and begin your transformative path of creativity and self-discovery today.
