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

The awareness of our own strength makes us modest.

Painting is founded on the heart controlled by the head.

The sun penetrates me soundlessly like a distant friend that stirs up my laziness, fertilizes it. We bring forth life.

It is not about painting life, it is about making the painting alive.

The most seductive thing about art is the personality of the artist himself.

When I start thinking, all is lost.

Nature is the best instructor.

The truth is in nature, and I shall prove it.

It is impossible for emotion not to come on us in thinking of that time now flowed away.

I am the primitive of the method I have invented.

Painting is damned difficult – you always think you’ve got it, but you haven’t.

Literature expresses itself by abstractions, whereas painting, by means of drawing and colour, gives concrete shape to sensations and perceptions.

I have not tried to reproduce nature; I have represented it.

I am beginning to consider myself stronger than all those around me, and you know that the good opinion I have of myself has only been reached after mature consideration.

With a painter’s temperament, all that’s needed are the means of expression sufficient to be intelligible to the wide public.

An art which isn’t based on feeling isn’t an art at all feeling is the principle, the beginning and the end; craft, objective, technique – all these are in the middle.

You must have the guts to throw off the chains of modesty and mediocrity in order to be the light that the world needs.

A full belly does not make for a chaste spirit.

Let your modesty be a sufficient incitement, yea, an exhortation to everyone to be at peace on their merely looking at you.

Under the magnetism of friendship the modest man becomes bold; the shy, confident; the lazy, active; and the impetuous, prudent and peaceful.

Although I grew up in very modest and challenging circumstances, I consider my life to be immeasurably rich.

Nobody who takes on anything big and tough can afford to be modest.

Remember that with her clothes a woman puts off her modesty.

Modesty is of no use to a beggar.