110+ Banksy Quotes On Art, Graffiti And Advertising

Banksy is an anonymous English graffiti artist, political activist, and film director. He is known for his satirical street art and subversive epigrams which combine dark humour with graffiti executed in a distinctive stencilling technique. His works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Banksy on art, graffiti, advertising.

Top 10 Banksy Quotes

1. People say graffiti is ugly, irresponsible and childish... but that's only if it's done properly.
2. 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.
3. Speak softly, but carry a big can of paint.
4. Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing.
5. 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.
6. Writing graffiti is about the most honest way you can be an artist. It takes no money to do it, you don't need an education to understand it, and there's no admission fee.
7. There are four basic human needs; food, sleep, sex and revenge.
8. 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.
9. Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.
10. A wall is a very big weapon. It's one of the nastiest things you can hit someone with.

Banksy Short Quotes

• Live as a villain, die as a hero
• Think outside the box, collapse the box, and take a f**king sharp knife to it.
• You don't need planning permission to build castles in the sky
• If at first you don't succeed, Call an airstrike.
• Keep your coins, I want change.
• People who get up early in the morning cause war, death and famine.
• I used to tell everyone I met to be an artist..... I don't do that any more.
• The bad artists imitate, the great artists steal.
• The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it.
• A lot of people never use their initiative because no-one told them to.

Banksy Quotes About Art

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

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

Is graffiti art or vandalism? That word has a lot of negative connotations and it alienates people, so no, I don't like to use the word 'art' at all. — Banksy

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

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

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

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

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

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

Graffiti ultimately wins out over proper art because it becomes part of your city, it' s a tool; "I'll meet you in that pub, you know, the one opposite that wall with a picture of a monkey holding a chainsaw". I mean, how much more useful can a painting be than that? — Banksy

Banksy Quotes About Graffiti

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

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

Remember crime against property is not real crime. People look at an oil painting and admire the use of brushstrokes to convey meaning. People look at a graffiti painting and admire the use of a drainpipe to gain access. — Banksy

Nothing in the world is more common than unsuccessful people with talent, leave the house before you find something worth staying in for. — Banksy

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

The grumpier you are, the more assholes you meet. — Banksy

Graffiti is only dangerous in the mind of three types of people; politicians, advertising executives and graffiti writers. — Banksy

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

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

You can win the rat race but you're still a rat. — Banksy

Banksy Quotes About Form

Although you might have to creep about at night and lie to your mum it’s actually one of the more honest art forms available. There is no elitism or hype, it exhibits on the best walls a town has to offer and nobody is put off by the price of admission. — Banksy

Graffiti's always been a temporary art form. You make your mark and then they scrub it off. — Banksy

I wouldn't want to be remembered as the guy who contaminated a perfectly legitimate form of protest art with money and celebrities. — Banksy

Banksy Quotes About Paintings

I'd been painting rats for three years before someone said 'that's clever it's an anagram of art' and I had to pretend I'd known that all along. — Banksy

If Michaelangelo or Leonardo Da Vinci were alive today they’d be making Avatar, not painting a chapel. — Banksy

T.V. has made going to the theatre seem pointless, photography has pretty much killed painting but graffiti has remained gloriously unspoilt by progress. — Banksy

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

If you don't own a train company then you go and paint on one instead... it all comes from that thing at school when you had to have name tags in the back of something... that makes it belong to you. You can own half the city by scribbling your name over it. — Banksy

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

I give away thousands of paintings for free. — Banksy

It's great, I guess, when your paintings are hanging up in a museum. — Banksy

This is a big surprise I don't agree with the concept of award ceremonies, but I'm prepared to make an exception for the ones I'm nominated for. The last time there was a naked man covered in gold paint in my house, it was me. — Banksy

Painting something that defies the law of the land is good. Painting something that defies the law of the land and the law of gravity at the same time is ideal. — Banksy

Banksy Quotes About Selling

I tell myself I use art to promote dissent, but maybe I am just using dissent to promote my art. I plead not guilty to selling out. But I plead it from a bigger house than I used to live in. — Banksy

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

There's obviously nothing wrong with selling your art - only an idiot with a trust fund would tell you otherwise. But it's confusing to know how far you should take it. — Banksy

Banksy Famous Quotes And Sayings

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

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

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

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

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

I don't know why people are so keen to put the details of their private life in public; they forget that invisibility is a superpower. — Banksy

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

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

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

Sometimes I feel so sick at the state of the world I can't even finish my second apple pie. — Banksy

My lawyer's opinion is that the cops might not actually be able to charge me with criminal damage any more - because theoretically my graffiti actually increases the value of property rather than decreasing it. That's his theory, but then my lawyer also believes wearing novelty cartoon ties is a good look. — Banksy

Some people represent authority without ever possessing any of their own. — Banksy

I don't know if street art ever really works indoors. If you domesticate an animal, it goes from being wild and free to sterile, fat and sleepy. So maybe the art should stay outside. — Banksy

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

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

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

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

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

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

A recent survey or North American males found 42% were overweight, 34% were critically obese and 8% ate the survey. — Banksy

It's impossible to predict which paintings will last and which won't. In New Orleans I painted on a dilapidated shop in a street littered with abandoned cars and rotting mattresses, then two hours later the piece was gone. It turned out I'd picked the side of a crack house and the proprietor didn't like the attention. — Banksy

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

On Painting Rats, and the Glorification of Them. They exist without permission. They are hated, hunted and persecuted. They live in quiet desperation amongst the filth. And yet they are capable of bringing entire civilizations to their knees. If you are dirty, insignificant, and unloved then rats are the ultimate role model. — Banksy

One Original Thought is worth 1000 Meaningless Quotes. — Banksy

Art is not like other culture because its success is not made by its audience. The public fill concert halls and cinemas every day, we read novels by the millions, and buy records by the billions. 'We the people' affect the making and quality of most of our culture, but not our art. — Banksy

If you get tired, learn to rest, not quit. — Banksy

Anyone who believes in capital punishment should be shot — Banksy

We don’t need any more heroes; we just need someone to take out the recycling. — Banksy

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

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

Traditional graffiti writers have a bunch of rules they like to stick to, and good luck to them, but I didn't become a graffiti artist so I could have somebody else tell me what to do. If you're the type who gets sentimental about people scribbling over your stuff, I suggest graffiti is probably not the right hobby for you. — Banksy

People who enjoy waving flags don't deserve to have one. — Banksy

If you are dirty, insignificant and unloved then rats are the ultimate role model. — Banksy

You're advised not to drink the replica Arab spring water. — Banksy

Gaza is often described as 'the world's largest open air prison' because no-one is allowed to enter or leave. But that seems a bit unfair to prisons - they don’t have their electricity and drinking water cut off randomly almost every day. — Banksy

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

I am unable to comment on who may or may not be Banksy, but anyone described as 'good at drawing' doesn't sound like Banksy to me. — Banksy

Not everyone will understand your journey. That's okay. You're here to live your life, not to make everyone understand. — Banksy

I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much anymore. — Banksy

Policemen and security guards wear hats with a peak that comes down low over their eyes. Apparently this is for psychological reasons. Eyebrows are very expressive and you appear a lot more authoritative if you keep them covered up. The advantage of this is that it makes a lot harder for cops to see anything more than six foot off the ground. Which is why painting rooftops and bridges is so easy. — Banksy

As far as I can tell the only thing worth looking at in most museums of art is all the schoolgirls on daytrips with the art departments. — Banksy

When he time comes to leave, just walk away quietly and don't make any fuss. — Banksy

Today's art has been cancelled due to police activity. — Banksy

People are fond of using military terms to describe what they do. We call it bombing when we go out painting, when of course it's more like entertaining the troops in a neutral zone, during peacetime in a country without an army. — Banksy

Nothing is black and white, and there is no purity and there is no such thing has justice. — Banksy

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

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

I have a theory that you can make any sentence seem profound by writing the name of a dead philosopher at the end of it. — Banksy

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

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

I have no interest in ever coming out. I’m just trying to make the pictures look good; I’m not into trying to make myself look good. And besides, it’s a pretty safe bet that the reality of me would be a crushing disappointment to a couple of 15-year-old kids out there. — Banksy

If it doesn’t matter, get rid of it. If you can’t get rid of it, it matters. — Banksy

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

Nobody knows what you feel inside unless you tell them. — Banksy

The time of getting fame for your name on its own is over. Artwork that is only about wanting to be famous will never make you famous. Any fame is a by-product of making something that means something. You don't go to a restaurant and order a meal because you want to have a sh*t. — Banksy

Stencils are good for two reasons; one - they're quick; two - they annoy idiots. — Banksy

Life Lessons by Banksy

1. Banksy's work often uses humour to make a statement about social and political issues, showing that art can be a powerful tool for communicating messages.
2. Banksy's work also demonstrates the importance of creativity and self-expression, as his art is often subversive and thought-provoking.
3. Banksy's art also highlights the importance of standing up for what you believe in, as his works often challenge existing norms and conventions.