“A certain amount of contempt for the material employed to express an idea is indispensable to the purest realization of this idea.”

Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask ‘how’, while others of a more curious nature will ask ‘why’. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.

I photograph the things that I do not wish to paint, the things which already have an existence.

I paint what cannot be photographed, something from the imagination. I photograph the things I don’t want to paint, things that are already in existence.

If I’d had the nerve, I’d have become a thief or a gangster, but since I didn’t, I became a photographer.

The tricks of today are the truths of tomorrow.

Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.

I am not going to be dictated to by the size of the camera. I use everything from an 8 x 10 to a 35-mm. But I don’t use these modern cameras which break down all the time !

l photograph what l do not wish to paint and l paint that which l cannot photograph.

To me, a painter, if not the most useful, is the least harmful member of our society.

An original is a creation motivated by desire.

I paint when I cannot photograph.

I have never painted a recent picture.

I have been accused of being a joker. But the most successful art to me involves humor.

To create is divine, to reproduce is human.

Nature does not create works of art. It is we, and the faculty of interpretation peculiar to the human mind, that see art.

The streets are full of admirable craftsmen, but so few practical dreamers.

I conceive, therefore, that a somewhat comprehensive socialisation of investment will prove the means of securing an approximation to full employment.

Logic , like lyrical poetry , is no employment for the middle-aged.

Gold and silver, like other commodities, have an intrinsic value, which is not arbitrary, but is dependent on their scarcity, the quantity of labour bestowed in procuring them, and the value of the capital employed in the mines which produce them.

Employment is nature’s physician, and is essential to human happiness.

Could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant employment to be a poet.

Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle.

The European Central Bank has only the first. It has no commitment to keep employment up.

In Britain, what we’ve done is say to 485 million people, ‘You can all come, every one of you. You’re unemployed? You’ve got a criminal record? Please come. You’ve got 19 children? Please come.’ We’ve lost any sense of perspective on this.