“Doubtless there are things in nature which have not yet been seen. If an artist discovers them, he opens the way for his successors.”

There are two things in the painter, the eye and the mind; each of them should aid the other.

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.

If in doubt, don’t. If still in doubt, do what’s right.

Power without guilt, love without doubt.

We know accurately only when we know little; doubt grows with knowledge.

It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.

Doubt can only be removed by action.

It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience.

Doubt and fear are the great enemies of knowledge, and he who encourages them, who does not slay them, thwarts himself at every step.

He who has conquered doubt and fear has conquered failure.