“Man has much power of discourse which for the most part is vain and false; animals have but little, but it is useful and true, and a small truth is better than a great lie.”

Nature is the source of all true knowledge. She has her own logic, her own laws, she has no effect without cause nor invention without necessity.

Art lives from constraints and dies from freedom.

A diamond is just a lump of coal that stuck to its job.

Nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first understood.

Being willing is not enough. We must do.

The five senses are the ministers of the soul.

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

Reprove your friend in secret and praise him openly.

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.

Fix your course on a star and you’ll navigate any storm.

Truth is so excellent, that if it praises but small things they become noble.

Be a mirror, absorb everything around you and still remain the same.

I thought I was learning to live; I was only learning to die.

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.

To become an artist you have to be curious.

Intellectual passion drives out sensuality.

I think what is meant by animal spirits is to be pro-active on all things that you do.

Japan is in the process of regaining this animal spirit.

To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.

Sympathy beyond the confines of man, that is, humanity to the lower animals, seems to be one of the latest moral acquisitions.

What I really wanted was to travel and see all the different animals that were on the verge of extinction.

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

Animals, whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equal.

Man is a goal-seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.