“I didn’t become an impressionist. As long as I can remember I always have been one.”

Listening only to my instincts, I discovered superb things.

I want to paint the air in which the bridge, the house and the boat are to be found – the beauty of the air around them, and that is nothing less than the impossible.

Now I really feel the landscape, I can be bold and include every tone of pink and blue: it’s enchanting, it’s delicious, and I hope it will please you.

It’s enough to drive you crazy, trying to depict the weather, the atmosphere, the ambience.

I let a good many mistakes show through when fixing my sensations. It will always be the same and this is what makes me despair.

Colors pursue me like a constant worry. They even worry me in my sleep.

A good impression is lost so quickly.

My only desire is an intimate infusion with nature, and the only fate I wish is to have worked and lived in harmony with her laws.

All of a sudden I had the revelation of how enchanting my pond was.

The only merit I have is to have painted directly from nature with the aim of conveying my impressions in front of the most fugitive effects.

The light constantly changes, and that alters the atmosphere and beauty of things every minute.

I sometimes feel ashamed that I am devoting myself to artistic pursuits while so many of our people are suffering and dying for us. It’s true that fretting never did any good.

I’m in a foul mood as I’m making stupid mistakes… This morning I lost beyond repair a painting with which I had been happy, having done about twenty sessions on it; it had to be thoroughly scraped away… what a rage I was in!

I’ve done what I could as a painter and that seems to me to be sufficient. I don’t want to be compared to the great masters of the past, and my painting is open to criticism; that’s enough.

No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition.

I am good at only two things, and those are gardening and painting.

Forget about being impressive and commit to being real.

I worked hard, day after day, evening upon evening, trying to impress others I’d forgotten I impressed myself.

The Lord breathes the breath of life, contrition of heart, into the face of the soul when he impresses upon it his own image and likeness, which has been soiled by sin, and renews it.

It’s fine if you doubt me. Underestimate me, because then I’ll just impress you, you know.

People can hear my songs are coming from something real. I mean what I say; I’m not just writing to impress critics or young girls, or older girls. The way I talk is the way I write a song.

The tastes and pursuits of manhood will bear on them the traces of the earlier impressions of our education. It is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that some portion of the neglect of science in England, may be attributed to the system of education we pursue.

Silence has sometimes a remarkable power of showing itself as the disembodied soul of feeling wandering without its carcase, and it is then more impressive than speech.

Many have learned that the magnitude of lives is not as to their external displacements, but as to their subjective experiences. The impressionable peasant leads a larger, fuller, more dramatic life than the pachydermatous king.