Top 151 Museums Quotes

When I began playing the lute, in 1950 there were not too many lutenists around. I had to work hard, writing out music in museums and libraries. It was before the days of photocopying. And I had just picked up the lute, adapted my guitar technique to it and went from there.

My dream was always to be in museums. It’s a big and important milestone and a fulfillment of one of my primary ambitions.

Museums are like sports stadiums, hotels and hospitals: they are in the category of captive-audience dining.

I’ve seen beautiful art on the sides of buildings. I’ve seen beautiful art in museums. I’ve seen beautiful art in galleries. Beautiful art is everywhere.

I love doing normal things – movies, shopping, going out with friends, writing, reading, taking hot bubble baths – that’s a big one for relaxation. I also love to go to art and history museums.

In museums and palaces we are alternate radicals and conservatives.

I came to Berlin not to visit its museums and galleries, its operas, its theaters… but for the sake of seeing and speaking with the world’s greatest living man – Alexander von Humboldt.

There are too many war museums.

I enjoy art, architecture, museums, churches and temples; anything that gives me insight into the history and soul of the place I’m in. I can also be a beach bum – I like to laze in the shade of a palm tree with a good book or float in a warm sea at sundown.

Museums are not normally presenting the works on the walls as provocations to work. It’s more like going to a Jacuzzi.

The Frankfurt Museum of Decorative Arts is a handsome building, which takes its cues from the riverside Biedermeier villa next to it, and it is well-integrated into an overall scheme for a group of small museums.

Norman Rockwell – even though we think of him as a great American artist, in a lot of museums he has not garnered that kind of attention. And it’s this kind of accessibility that we’re trying to bring – not looking down on any art.

Switzerland felt incredibly narrow, growing up. It was good, in a way. There were so many museums. But it was always a no-brainer that I would have to leave, and I’m grateful for that.

I think there is a new awareness in this 21st century that design is as important to where and how we live as it is for museums, concert halls and civic buildings.

One of the brilliant things about Britain is the way you’ve managed to save old things but to keep using them – that they’ve not just become museums the way they do in the United States.

Of course, museums and galleries and art spaces will continue to ground the art world. But certainly the public – as well as artists – also benefit when art is encountered in other everyday situations.

What I’m very upset about is the attempt to dictate to museums what they show, and the statements made by politicians in Washington that have curtailed the freedom of the National Endowment for the Arts. The attention to those issues is deflected by the spin of my supposedly having trivialized the Holocaust.

I am like a sponge: I adore reading, watching films, and visiting museums and exhibitions. I am always in search of new things in many spheres.

There are so many great galleries and museums in London, but they can be very crowded during the day.

Great Art is Great because it inspired you greatly. If it didn’t, no matter what the critics, the museums and the galleries say, it’s not great art for you.

I grew up in New York City. I went to museums so much as a kid, and I guess I didn’t realize how much it affected me.

Technology is in fact one of the most exciting things that’s happened to museums today – but one has to be careful about where one uses it. For instance, the Internet provides an incredible opportunity. It is a way for us to reach audiences around the world and further our educational mission.

I am a keen medievalist and like going around museums and ruins and finding out about the people and local culture. I’m not one for sitting by a pool or lying on a beach. I also like to sketch while I’m on holiday, if I have time.

A society – any society – is defined as a set of mutual benefits and duties embodied most visibly in public institutions: public schools, public libraries, public transportation, public hospitals, public parks, public museums, public recreation, public universities, and so on.

Museums provide places of relaxation and inspiration. And most importantly, they are a place of authenticity. We live in a world of reproductions – the objects in museums are real. It’s a way to get away from the overload of digital technology.

Some government expenditure actually makes a profit. Our theatre leads the world. Loads of tourists must be attracted by the fact that you could spend a week in London doing nothing but visit superb museums and galleries, free.

I have been brought up around art. Even now, when I travel, I love going to museums and spend hours in front of paintings. Art is like oxygen for me. That’s what I miss in Bombay.

New York being what it is, our museums are vertical, not horizontal. That means the stumbling blocks to architectural clarity are unavoidable – but certainly surmountable.

Much of what’s called ‘public’ is increasingly a private good paid for by users – ever-higher tolls on public highways and public bridges, higher tuitions at so-called public universities, higher admission fees at public parks and public museums.

Museums, I think, are becoming more and more aware of how to turn themselves into a must-see spectacle.

If the standard for art is the decency of its creators, we’re going to have a lot of empty museums.

European museums are all dependent on government financing. The moment European governments are under financial pressure, their budgets are cut.

Films go into vaults, art into museums, and music into halls of fame. Most fashion is worn for a few seasons and off-loaded into the recycling bin or, worse, some landfill.

The Sandwich Islands are not the same as Otaheite nor as the Fijis, from which they are distant about 4,000 miles, nor are their people of the same race. The natives are not cannibals, and it is doubtful if they ever were so. Their idols only exist in missionary museums.

I love ruins and museums but, if I’ve been working hard, I enjoy a beach holiday.

I started traveling by myself as early as 5 to see my dad. I’d go to Toronto or Los Angeles, depending on what show he was doing, but most often New York, and we would hang out, and he’d take me to museums and Broadway plays. The ones that had the biggest impact on me were the George C. Wolfe productions.

We live in a world where art exists in galleries and museums, and musicians have to play the same venues over and over.

It is important never to forget our history, but parts of our history are more appropriately displayed in museums, not on government property.

I spend all day in museums. I even eat my lunch in the museum, and I take a nap for one hour there.

As for pictures and museums, that don’t trouble me. The worst of going abroad is that you’ve always got to look at things of that sort. To have to do it at home would be beyond a joke.

I’m a rock climber, a high-altitude climber, an adventurer, a storyteller through my museums, and a writer of more than 50 books.

I grew up going to museums. I was privileged to discover art and artists in a very personal way.

I have a pretty big range of interests. I love art; I love going to the museums. I dabble in painting, and although I’m not very good at it, I enjoy it.

When I was growing up, my mother would take me to plays and museums, and we’d talk about life. Those times helped shape who I became.

Summer is a great time to visit art museums, which offer the refreshing rinse of swimming pools – only instead of cool water, you immerse yourself in art.

Tourists as well as natives want to see cultural achievements – whether it’s the Banaue Terraces, the old churches or museums.

I’m a closet nerd. I love to study history and visit museums.

All of our lives are enriched by our culture, from blockbuster films, best-selling video games, independent music, and internationally-renowned museums and art collections, to theatre, opera, ballet, literary festivals and performance poetry.

Cash as a physical entity will virtually cease to exist, with coins and checkbooks consigned to museums. As people conduct their financial transactions on hand-held devices made secure by advanced biometrics, even tipping will be done electronically.

If you’re gonna do museums, some of the best in the world are in D.C.

Egypt really is one of the worlds greatest open-air museums.

Boston was a great city to grow up in, and it probably still is. We were surrounded by two very important elements: academia and the arts. I was surrounded by theater, music, dance, museums. And I learned how to sail on the Charles River. So I had a great childhood in Boston. It was wonderful.

I go to museums. I buy art, even. You should see my house; we don’t have any wall space left.

My mother was a teacher, and when she wanted to show me art and literature and science, she’d take me to museums, parks and free exhibitions.