Banksy famous quotes

I wanted to highlight the destruction in Gaza by posting photos on my website - but on the internet people only look at pictures of kittens
-- Banksy

#People #Looks #Internet

All I know about what people think of my gear is what a couple of my friends tell me, and one of them always wants to borrow money, so I'm not sure how reliable he is.
-- Banksy

#Couple #Thinking #People

You're mind is working at its best when you're being paranoid. You explore every avenue and possibility of your situation at high speed with total clarity.
-- Banksy

#Art #Creativity #Mind

The art world is the biggest joke going. It's a rest home for the overprivileged, the pretentious, and the weak. And modern art is a disgrace - never have so many people used so much stuff and taken so long to say so little.
-- Banksy

#Art #Taken #Home

I know street art can feel increasingly like the marketing wing of an art career, so I wanted to make some art without the price tag attached. There's no gallery show or book or film. It's pointless. Which hopefully means something.
-- Banksy

#Art #Book #Mean

the people who run our cities dont understand graffiti because they think nothing has the right to exist unless it makes a profit... the people who truly deface our neighborhoods are the companies that scrawl giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff.... any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours, it belongs to you ,, its yours to take, rearrange and re use.Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head..
-- Banksy

#Running #Thinking #Rocks

A lot of people never use their initiative because no-one told them to.
-- Banksy

#Independent #People #Use

Bus stops are far more interesting and useful places to have art than in museums,
-- Banksy

#Art #Museums #Interesting

People either love me or they hate me, or they don't really care.
-- Banksy

#Hate #People #Care

I need someone to protect me from all the measures they take in order to protect me.
-- Banksy

#Art #Order #Needs

It doesn't take much to be a successful artist-all you need to do is dedicate your entire life to it.
-- Banksy

#Successful #Artist #Needs

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 #People #Graffiti

People who get up early in the morning cause war, death and famine.
-- Banksy

#Art #Morning #War

Should #‎ graffiti be judged on the same level as modern art? Of course not: It's way more important than that
-- Banksy

#Art #Important #Graffiti

You owe the companies nothing. You especially don't owe them any courtesy. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs.
-- Banksy

#Business #Asking #World

Imagine a city where graffiti wasn't illegal, a city where everybody could draw whatever they liked. Where every street was awash with a million colours and little phrases. Where standing at a bus stop was never boring. A city that felt like a party where everyone was invited, not just the estate agents and barons of big business. Imagine a city like that and stop leaning against the wall - it's wet.
-- Banksy

#Wall #Party #Cities

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 #Skills #People

Nobody ever listened to me until they didn't know who I was
-- Banksy

#Graffiti

Speak softly, but carry a big can of paint.
-- Banksy

#Hipster #Graffiti #Speak

Film is incredibly democratic and accessible, it's probably the best option if you actually want to change the world, not just re-decorate it.
-- Banksy

#World #Want #Film

The bad artists imitate, the great artists steal,
-- Banksy

#Artist #Stealing #Great Art

Brandalism Any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It belongs to you. It's yours to take, rearrange and re-use. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
-- Banksy

#Rocks #Space #Giving

You live in the city and all the time there are signs telling you what to do and billboards trying to sell you something.
-- Banksy

#Cities #Trying #Billboards

I wouldnt want to be remembered as the guy who contaminated a perfectly legitimate form of protest art with money and celebrities.
-- Banksy

#Art #Guy #Want

Some people criticize me for using sources that are a bit low brow (this quote is from 'Gladiator') but you know what? 'I'm just going to use that hostility to make me stronger, not weaker' as Kelly Rowland said on the X Factor,
-- Banksy

#People #Stronger #Use

We can't do anything to change the world until capitalism crumbles. In the meantime we should all go shopping to console ourselves,
-- Banksy

#Shopping #World #Should

Live as a villain, die as a hero
-- Banksy

#Hero #Villain

I've never really understood why people sleep. Wasting a third of your life and becoming vulnerable for almost 8 hours every night. Doesn't seem very appealing to me.
-- Banksy

#Sleep #Night #People

Think outside the box, collapse the box, and take a f**king sharp knife to it.
-- Banksy

#Life #Beautiful #Kings

I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.
-- Banksy

#Mean #Breathing #Names

People say graffiti is ugly, irresponsible and childish... but that's only if it's done properly.
-- Banksy

#People #Graffiti #Done

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 #Thinking #Justice

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 #People #House

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

You don't need planning permission to build castles in the sky
-- Banksy

#Sky #Castles #Needs

I think its pretty clear that film is the pre-eminent art form of our age. If Michaelangelo or Leonardo Da Vinci were alive today they’d be making Avatar, not painting a chapel. Film is incredibly democratic and accessible, it’s probably the best option if you actually want to change the world, not just re-decorate it.
-- Banksy

#Art #Thinking #Age

If you want to say something and have people listen then you have to wear a mask. If you want to be honest then you have to live a lie.
-- Banksy

#Art #Lying #People

It's a very frustrated feeling you get when the only people with good photos of you work are the police department.
-- Banksy

#People #Police #Feelings

Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing.
-- Banksy

#Graffiti #Tools

All artists are willing to suffer for their work. But why are so few prepared to learn to draw?
-- Banksy

#Artist #Suffering #Draws

There are four basic human needs; food, sleep, sex and revenge.
-- Banksy

#Sex #Revenge #Sleep

Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.
-- Banksy

#Art #Littles #Fields

I originally set out to try and save the world, but now I'm not sure I like it enough.
-- Banksy

#Trying #World #Enough

Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.
-- Banksy

#Art #Comfort #Should

At this time of year it's easy to forget the true meaning of Christianity - the lies, the corruption, the abuse.
-- Banksy

#Christmas #Lying #Years

A wall is a very big weapon. It's one of the nastiest things you can hit someone with.
-- Banksy

#Art #Wall #Weapons

The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules. It's people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages.
-- Banksy

#Art #Order #People

The Art we look at is made by only a select few. A small group create, promote, purchase, exhibit and decide the success of Art. Only a few hundred people in the world have any real say. When you go to an Art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy cabinet of a few millionaires
-- Banksy

#Art #Real #People

There's nothing more dangerous than someone who wants to make the world a better place.
-- Banksy

#Interesting #World #Want

A lot of mothers will do anything for their children, except let them be themselves.
-- Banksy

#Mother #Children #Parenting

Become good at cheating and you never need to become good at anything else.
-- Banksy

#Cheating #Art #Graffiti

When you go to an art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy cabinet of a few millionaires.
-- Banksy

#Art #Tourists #Cabinets

The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists.. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.
-- Banksy

#Art #Hate #Creativity

Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing. And even if you don't come up with a picture to cure world poverty you can make someone smile while they're having a piss.
-- Banksy

#Art #Graffiti #Tools

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

#Art #Alive #Painting

The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it.
-- Banksy

#Art #People #Holy Grail

I love the way capitalism finds a place - even for its enemies.
-- Banksy

#Enemy #Way #Capitalism

I give away thousands of paintings for free.
-- Banksy

#Giving #Painting