Quotes: Artistic process
The artistic process is a practice of selection and persistence, where clarity and pared-down form meet the restless need to move forward. It asks for work that reveals what is essential, while also demanding immediate action and repeated attempts when outcomes fall short. You encounter both the craft of simplification and the courage to start again.
Voices such as Leonardo da Vinci, J. Cole and Samuel Beckett highlight complementary angles: the refinement of expression, the urgency to act, and the resilience to fail and try again. The running question between them is how to balance deliberate clarity with the risk-taking that fuels creation.
3 quotes on this theme, each with its source and insight
The quotes
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
Source: no specific work is documented · Check the source
MisattributedWhat we know
- What is documented
- Scholars find no evidence of the sentence in Leonardo's notebooks; textual investigations trace the wording to 20th-century publications.
- What remains uncertain
- The quotation is considered apocryphal: it likely arose in the 20th century and was later attached to Leonardo because it fit his image.
The line captures an aesthetic truth: the most polished result often comes from removing what isn't needed. It's widely credited to Leonardo da Vinci because it suits his reputation for elegant engineering, but researchers find no trace of the sentence in his surviving notebooks. The quote is a later homage to his style, not a documented Leonardo sentence.
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
Source: Worstward Ho (1983) · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The line appears in Samuel Beckett's late prose piece Worstward Ho, published in 1983.
Beckett’s line condenses a late-career aesthetic: persistence within limits. In Worstward Ho (1983) the phrase operates as an artistic rule — failure is not a mistake to erase but the material out of which work continues.
“Whatever is well conceived is clearly said, and the words to say it flow with ease.”
Source: L’Art poétique, 1674 · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The line appears in L’Art poétique (1674) and is reliably attributed to Nicolas Boileau‑Despréaux.
Boileau’s line states a simple writing truth: clear thinking produces clear expression. It insists that precision of idea, not decorative language, makes writing intelligible. The couplet appears in L’Art poétique (1674).