The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live. Be a man before being an artist!
Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit of which nature herself is animated.
Patience is also a form of action.
The more simple we are, the more complete we become.
Love your calling with passion; it is the meaning of your life.
There are unknown forces in nature; when we give ourselves wholly to her, without reserve, she lends them to us; she shows us these forms, which our watching eyes do not see, which our intelligence does not understand or suspect.
The artist is the confidant of nature, flowers carry on dialogues with him through the graceful bending of their stems and the harmoniously tinted nuances of their blossoms, Every flower has a cordial word which nature directs towards him.
You must always work.
If the artist only reproduces superficial features as photography does, if he copies the lineaments of a face exactly, without reference to character, he deserves no admiration. The resemblance which he ought to obtain is that of the soul.
I would have to talk for a year to repeat a single on of my works with words.
I invent nothing, I rediscover.
I know very well that one must fight, for one is often in contradiction to the spirit of the age.
Where shall we begin? There is no beginning. Start where you arrive. Stop before what entices you. And work! You will enter little by little into the entirety. Method will be born in proportion to your interest.
It is the artist who is truthful and it is photography which lies, for in reality time does not stop.
To any artist, worthy of the name, all in nature is beautiful, because his eyes, fearlessly accepting all exterior truth, read there, as in an open book, all the inner truth.
An artist worthy of the name should express all the truth of nature, not only the exterior truth, but also, and above all, the inner truth.
Art is the pleasure of a spirit that enters nature and discovers that it too has a soul.
There should be no argument in regard to morality in art. There is no morality in nature.
What is commonly called ugliness in nature can in art become full of beauty.
Where did I learn to understand sculpture? In the woods by looking at the trees, along roads by observing the formation of clouds, in the studio by studying the model, everywhere except in the schools.