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The bad artists imitate, the great artists steal.

Banksy

If you have a statue in the city centre you could go past it every day on your way to school and never even notice it, right. But as soon as someone puts a traffic cone on its head, you’ve made your own sculpture.
BANKSY

Cities Past School
Nobody knows what you feel inside unless you tell them.
BANKSY

Feels Knows Nobody
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
Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.
BANKSY

Art Comfort Should
If you want someone to be ignored then build a life-size bronze statue of them and stick it in the middle of town. It doesn’t matter how great you were, it’ll always take an unfunny drunk with climbing skills to make people notice you.
BANKSY

Climbing Drunk Skills
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
A wall is a very big weapon. It’s one of the nastiest things you can hit someone with.
BANKSY

Art Graffiti Wall
Bus stops are far more interesting and useful places to have art than in museums.
BANKSY

Art Bus Stops Museums
I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don’t do that so much anymore.
BANKSY

Art Encourage People Used
People either love me or they hate me, or they don’t really care.
BANKSY

Care Hate People
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 don’t think you should have to pay to look at graffiti. You should only pay if you want to get rid of it.
BANKSY

Graffiti Should Have Thinking
Stencils are good for two reasons; one – they’re quick; two – they annoy idiots.
BANKSY

Annoying Idiot Two
All graffiti is low-level dissent, but stencils have an extra history. They’ve been used to start revolutions and to stop wars
BANKSY

Graffiti Levels War
I don’t think you should have to pay to look at graffiti. You should only pay if you want to get rid of it.
BANKSY

Graffiti Pay Think Thinking
A lot of people never use their initiative because no-one told them to.
BANKSY

Independent People Use

The bad artists imitate, the great artists steal.

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The bad artists imitate, the great artists steal.

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