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I’ve learnt from experience that a painting isn’t finished when you put down your brush – that’s when it starts. The public reaction is what supplies meaning and value. Art comes alive in the arguments you have about it.

Banksy

I have a theory that you can make any sentence seem profound by writing the name of a dead philosopher at the end of it.
BANKSY

Names Profound Writing
You can win the rat race but you’re still a rat.
BANKSY

Inspirational Race Winning
But there’s no way round it-commercial success is a mark of failure for a graffiti artist. We’re not supposed to be embraced in that way. When you look at how society rewards so many of the wrong people, it’s hard not to view financial reimbursement as a badge of self-serving mediocrity.
BANKSY

Artist Self Views
Gaza is often described as ‘the world’s largest open air prison’ because no-one is allowed to enter or leave. But that seems a bit unfair to prisons – they don’t have their electricity and drinking water cut off randomly almost every day.
BANKSY

Air Cutting Drinking
Nobody ever listened to me until they didn’t know who I was
BANKSY

Graffiti Knows Piece Wall
If Michaelangelo or Leonardo Da Vinci were alive today they’d be making Avatar, not painting a chapel.
BANKSY

Alive Live Painting Today
A lot of people never use their initiative because no-one told them to.
BANKSY

Independent People Use
I just wanna make the world a better-looking place. If you don’t like it, you can paint over it!
BANKSY

Look Over Paint World
If you feel dirty, insignificant or unloved, then rats are a good role model. They exist without permission, they have no respect for the hierarchy of society, and they have sex 50 times a day.
BANKSY

Dirty Model Role Sex
I’d been painting rats for three years before someone said ‘that’s clever it’s an anagram of art’ and I had to pretend I’d known that all along.
BANKSY

Art Clever Years
Nothing in the world is more common than unsuccessful people with talent, leave the house before you find something worth staying in for.
BANKSY

Art House People
If you don’t own a train company then you go and paint on one instead… it all comes from that thing at school when you had to have name tags in the back of something… that makes it belong to you. You can own half the city by scribbling your name over it.
BANKSY

Cities Names School
A recent survey or North American males found 42% were overweight, 34% were critically obese and 8% ate the survey.
BANKSY

Found Males Surveys
When he time comes to leave, just walk away quietly and don’t make any fuss.
BANKSY

Come Fuss Leave Walk
People seem to think if they dress like a revolutionary they don`t actually have to behave like one.
BANKSY

Dresses People Thinking
I love the way capitalism finds a place – even for its enemies.
BANKSY

Capitalism Enemy Way
I need someone to protect me from all the measures they take in order to protect me.
BANKSY

Art Need Order
I like to think I have the guts to stand up anonymously in a western democracy and call for things no-one else believes in – like peace and justice and freedom.
BANKSY

Believe Justice Thinking
There are four basic human needs; food, sleep, sex and revenge.
BANKSY

Art Revenge Sex
Nothing is black and white, and there is no purity and there is no such thing has justice.
BANKSY

Black Justice Purity White
Some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place. Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking place.
BANKSY

Art Graffiti People
Writing graffiti is about the most honest way you can be an artist. It takes no money to do it, you don’t need an education to understand it, and there’s no admission fee.
BANKSY

Artist Graffiti Writing
All artists are willing to suffer for their work. But why are so few prepared to learn to draw?
BANKSY

Artist Draws Suffering
A wall is a very big weapon. It’s one of the nastiest things you can hit someone with.
BANKSY

Art Graffiti Wall
I tell myself I use art to promote dissent, but maybe I am just using dissent to promote my art. I plead not guilty to selling out. But I plead it from a bigger house than I used to live in.
BANKSY

Art Dissent Guilty House Plead
The one thing you can rely on is if you get disturbed halfway through a painting and it looks a bit naff, then someone will preserve that piece, remove it and a few months later it’ll be paraded round Sotheby’s by people wearing white gloves.
BANKSY

Looks People White
The one thing you can rely on is if you get disturbed halfway through a painting and it looks a bit naff, then someone will preserve that piece, remove it and a few months later it’ll be paraded round Sotheby’s by people wearing white gloves.
BANKSY

Looks People White

I’ve learnt from experience that a painting isn’t finished when you put down your brush – that’s when it starts. The public reaction is what supplies meaning and value. Art comes alive in the arguments you have about it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

I’ve learnt from experience that a painting isn’t finished when you put down your brush – that’s when it starts. The public reaction is what supplies meaning and value. Art comes alive in the arguments you have about it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Banksy Quotes