“The approbation of others is a stimulus of which one must sometimes be wary. The feeling of one’s own strength makes one modest.”

When the color achieves richness, the form attains its fullness also.

Sometimes I imagine colors as if they were living ideas, being of pure reason with which to communicate. Nature is not on the surface, it is deep down.

The artist makes things concrete and gives them individuality.

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not really possible to help others.

What is one to think of those fools who tell one that the artist is always subordinate to nature? Art is a harmony parallel with nature.

I advance all of my canvas at one time.

An art which isn’t based on feeling isn’t an art at all.

We live in a rainbow of chaos.

Here, on the river’s verge, I could be busy for months without changing my place, simply leaning a little more to right or left.

Don’t be an art critic. Paint. There lies salvation.

I have to keep working, not to arrive at finish, which arouses the admiration of fools… I must seek completion only for the pleasure of being truer and more knowing.

Nature is more depth than surface, the colours are the expressions on the surface of this depth; they rise up from the roots of the world.

I am more a friend of art than a producer of painting.

You must think. The eye is not enough; it needs to think as well.

Art first of all is optical. That’s where the material of our art is: in what our eyes think.

To paint is not to copy the object slavishly, it is to grasp a harmony among many relationships.

Sincerity is not a spontaneous flower nor is modesty either.

Modesty is not one of my virtues.

When entering on new ground we must not be afraid to express even risky ideas so as to stimulate research in all directions. As Priestley put it, we must not remain inactive through false modesty based on fear of being mistaken.

Modesty is a valuable merit … in people who have no other, and the appearance of it is extremely useful to those who have.

If somebody praises you; change the topic!

There is a proud modesty in merit.

There’s a proud modesty in merit; averse from asking, and resolved to pay ten times the gifts it asks.

Do as much as possible, and talk of yourself as little as possible.