These muse quotes will inspire you. Muse is a person or personified force who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist.
A collection of motivating, happy, and encouraging muse quotes, muse sayings, and muse proverbs.
Famous Muse Quotes
- “I am my own muse. I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to better.” ~ Frida Kahlo
- “A muse can be a mirror: a reflection of the artist’s desires, anxieties, dreams and needs.” ~ Vince Aletti
- “Express your creativity. Delight in the mystery of your inner muse.” ~ Cheryl Richardson
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“Muses work all day long and then at night get together and dance.” ~ Edgar Degas
- “Cheat your landlord if you can — and must — but do not try to shortchange the Muse.” ~ William S. Burroughs
- “Once you start being a muse, you cannot stop being a muse.” ~ Carine Roitfeld
- “Perversity is the muse of modern literature.” ~ Susan Sontag
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“There is no place for grief in a house which serves the Muse.” ~ Sappho
- “There are, it seems, two muses: The Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns, again and again, to say, ‘It is yet more difficult than you thought.’ It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.” ~ Wendell Berry
- “Let passion be your muse. Let her guide and teach you to trust your instincts.” ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach
- “The Muse visits during the process of creation, not before.” ~ Roger Ebert
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“The muses are ghosts, and sometimes they come uninvited.” ~ Stephen King
- “A female friend, amiable, clever, and devoted, is a possession more valuable than parks and palaces; and without such a muse, few men can succeed in life, none be contented.” ~ Benjamin Disraeli
- “Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too. If she doesn’t show up invited, eventually she just shows up” ~ Isabel Allende
- “A cheerful life is what the Muses love. A soaring spirit is their prime delight.” ~ William Wordsworth
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“When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.'” ~ Maya Angelou
- “Don’t be different just for different’s sake. If you see it differently, function that way. Follow your own muse, always.” ~ Morgan Freeman
- “The muse whispers to you when she chooses, and you can’t tell her to come back later, because you quickly learn in this business that she might not come back at all.” ~ Terry Brooks
- “Fool,” said my muse to me. “Look in thy heart and write.” ~ Philip Sidney
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“O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.” ~ William Shakespeare
- “Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget’st so long / To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?” ~ William Shakespeare
- “Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story” ~ Robert Fitzgerald
- “Art is the extended arm of your imagination, The feast of inspiration for your muse. Art isn’t just creativity, its a way of life.” ~ Sarah Curran
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“The most potent muse of all is our own inner child.” ~ Stephen Nachmanovitch
- “Visual tonics such as ‘timed creativity’ need to be introduced to refresh and refurbish the muse.” ~ Robert Genn
- “I’m not in control of my muse. My muse does all the work.” ~ Ray Bradbury
- “All men owe honor to the poets – honor and awe; for they are dearest to the Muse who puts upon their lips the ways of life.” ~ Homer
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“If we are transparent, with nothing to hide, the gap between language and being disappears. Then the Muse can speak.” ~ Stephen Nachmanovitch
- “You know, it’s the same thing as the question of free will and destiny, the question of creativity – you, the artist, you’re not the puppet of the piano, you’re not the puppet of the muse, but you’re not its master, either. It’s a relationship, it’s a conversation, and all it wants is to be treated with respect and dignity – and it will return ten thousand times over.” ~ Elizabeth Gilbert
- “Muse. Mu-se. It’s a great thing, for someone to feel that they can draw inspiration from you. And I don’t think it’s necessarily a man ‘taking’ from a woman. It can go both ways, both can stimulate, excite.” ~ Chloe Sevigny
- “The man who arrives at the doors of artistic creation with none of the madness of the Muses would be convinced that technical ability alone was enough to make an artist… what that man creates by means of reason will pale before the art of inspired beings.” ~ Plato
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“Artists are visited by the Muses, or tormented by their own passions and demons.” ~ Wes Nisker
- “I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. … I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories – science fiction or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.” ~ Ray Bradbury , Muse quotes love
- “A successful artist is inspired by his muse, and his muse is inspired by the payment of a commission.” ~ Robert Breault
- “I think of mythology as the homeland of the muses, the inspirers of art, the inspirers of poetry. To see life as a poem and yourself participating in a poem is what the myth does for you.” ~ Joseph Campbell
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“You’re best when you’re not in charge. The ego locks the muse.” ~ Robin Williams
- “I would especially like to re-court the Muse of poetry, who ran off with the mailman four years ago, and drops me only a scribbled postcard from time to time.” ~ John Updike
- “The Muse gave the Greeks genius and the art of the well-turned phrase.” ~ Horace
- “There is no architect
Can build as the Muse can;
She is skilful to select
Materials for her plan.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson -
“The professional will not tolerate disorder… He wants the carpet vacuumed and the threshold swept, so the Muse may enter and not soil her gown.” ~ Steven Pressfield
- “If anyone comes to the gates of poetry and expects to become an adequate poet by acquiring expert knowledge of the subject without the Muses’ madness, he will fail, and his self-controlled verses will be eclipsed by the poetry of men who have been driven out of their minds.” ~ Plato
- “The muse is not an angelic voice that sits on your shoulder and sings sweetly. The muse is the most annoying whine. The muse isn’t hard to find, just hard to like – she follows you everywhere, tapping you on the shoulder, demanding that you stop doing whatever else you might be doing and pay attention to her.” ~ Harlan Coben
- “To me the Muses truly gave / An envied and a happy lot: / E’en when I lie within the grave, / I cannot, shall not, be forgot.” ~ Sappho
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“I go forth to seek To seek and claim the lovely magic garden Where grasses softly sigh and Muses speak.” ~ Anna Akhmatova
- “The adventure of composition is a mystery. The muse has her ways, she hides from you, comes for you in the middle of the night, at midday, at dawn. You must believe wholeheartedly in this divine power. Its an elusive gift that can appear at any time, anywhere. Artists are in awe of it.” ~ Mickey Hart
- “When inspiration does not come, I go for a walk, go to the movie, talk to a friend, let go… The muse is bound to return again, especially if I turn my back!” ~ Judy Collins
- “It can pay off, being a hack. Given the depraved state of American culture, a slick dude can make millions being a hack. But even if you succeed, you lose, because you’ve sold out your Muse, and your Muse is you, the best part of yourself, where your finest and only true work comes from.” ~ Steven Pressfield
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“You’re going to be unemployed if you really think you just have to sit around and wait for the muse to land on your shoulder.” ~ Nora Roberts
- “The muse on my shoulder is very sensitive and does not abide claptrap of any kind… Only when I am totally immersed… absorbed in work… does she allow something magical to happen and I become aware of a faint heartbeat and gentle breath emanating from my brush.” ~ Catherine Stock
- “Never forget that the nurturing and preservation of your own muse is job one. Lose it and you may be losing a great deal.” ~ Robert Genn
- “No one ever gets talker’s block. No one wakes up in the morning, discovers he has nothing to say, and sits quietly, for days or weeks, until the muse hits, until the moment is right, until all the craziness in his life has died down.” ~ Seth Godin
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“True muses stay dreams forever unless artists connect them to exploratory work.” ~ Robert Genn
- “We know the human mind is programmed to glaze over when bored. Conversely, the mind is more alert in the presence of novelty. Our muse needs to stay seductive to keep our hands doing the right things.” ~ Robert Genn
- “O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention, A kingdom for a stage, princes to act And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!” ~ William Shakespeare
- “My self . . . is a dramatic ensemble. Here a prophetic ancestor makes his appearance. Here a brutal hero shouts. Here an alcoholic bon vivant argues with a learned professor. Here a lyric muse, chronically love-struck, raises her eyes to heaven. Her papa steps forward, uttering pedantic protests. Here the indulgent uncle intercedes. Here the aunt babbles gossip. Here the maid giggles lasciviously. And I look upon it all with amazement, the sharpened pen in my left hand.” ~ Paul Klee
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“I’m only able to write poetry, for the most part, when I have a Muse, a woman who focuses the world for me.” ~ May Sarton
- “I think being consistent is really important. In the arts there’s a misconception that you sit around waiting for the muse to come, and that it’s all really mystical and mysterious. In reality, sometimes you have to fake it till you make it.” ~ Ayana Mathis
- “Like a sea-beast fished up from the depths, or a diver too suddenly hoisted, my veins threatened to burst from the fall in pressure. I had great anxiety and no means of relieving it … And then it was that the Muse of Painting came to my rescue – out of charity and out of chivalry … – and said, “Are these toys any good to you? They amuse some people.”” ~ Winston Churchill
- “Illustrious acts high raptures do infuse, And every conqueror creates a muse.” ~ Edmund Waller
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“The muse doesn’t come without being called.” ~ Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
- “In the beginning, there was a kind of energy that – like an urgency to express myself, and the songs just couldn’t be held in. But I think it changes, the nature of how that – what that energy is. And I need to court the muse in a much more serious way.” ~ James Taylor
- “To feed your Muse, then, you should always have been hungry about life since you were a child. If not, it is a little late to start.” ~ Ray Bradbury
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“I just really allowed my muse to be my guide and I just go with whatever I’m feeling.” ~ K. D. Lang
- “We stalk the truth as poets, sensualists, a duality, limited insanity. We labor in our muse, carving alphabets of experience into our hearts.” ~ Masiela Lusha
- “The Muse but serv’d to ease some friend, not wife, / To help me through this long disease, my life.” ~ Alexander Pope
Muse to become absorbed in thought especially.
