What moves those of genius, what inspires their work is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.

If one considered life as a simple loan, one would perhaps be less exacting. We possess actually nothing; everything goes through us.

Everyone knows that yellow, orange, and red suggest ideas of joy and plenty. I can paint you the skin of Venus with mud, provided you let me surround it as I will.

A picture is nothing but a bridge between the soul of the artist and that of the spectator.

The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing.

We work not only to produce, but to give value to time.

Talent does whatever it wants to do. Genius does only what it can.

One never paints violently enough.

Seeing artistically does not happen automatically. We must constantly develop our powers of observation.

A fine suggestion, a sketch with great feeling, can be as expressive as the most finished product.

Nourish yourself with grand and austere ideas of beauty that feed the soul Seek solitude.

There's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over.

Knights do protect ladies, but only to keep them from being abducted by other knights.

Success is taken by the man, who has made himself ready for its arrival.

The things you escape have the ability to catch you, one or other day! Stop running away! Meet them and defeat them!

'Hope' is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without words And never stops - at all.

I've always had a natural affiliation with nature. If I wasn't an actor, I'd be some sort of biologist working in the field in Africa or something.

Ah, what without a heaven would be even love!--a perpetual terror of the separation that must one day come.

Let the fear of a danger be a spur to prevent it.

We will always return to the private and inviolable act of reading as our culture's way of developing an individual.

The beast that bears you fastest to perfection is suffering.