Nations, like families, have great men only in spite of themselves.
Poetry has no goal other than itself; it can have no other, and no poem will be so great, so noble, so truly worthy of the name of poem, than one written uniquely for the pleasure of writing a poem.
If a given combination of trees, mountains, water, and houses, say a landscape, is beautiful, it is not so by itself, but because of me, of my favor, of the idea or feeling I attach to it.
The more a man cultivates the arts the less he fornicates. A more and more apparent cleavage occurs between the spirit and the brute.
What is it that brings on these moods of yours? Nothing mysterious: the ordinary pain of being alive.
In art, there is one thing which does not receive sufficient attention. The element which is left to the human will is not nearly so large as people think.
It is good sometimes that the happy of this world should learn, were it only to humble their foolish pride for an instant, that there are higher, wider, and rarer joys than theirs.
The act of love strongly resembles torture or surgery.
What is love? The need of coming out of one’s self.
Quand notre coeur a fait une fois sa vendange, Vivre est un mal. Once our heart has been harvested once, Life becomes miserable.
The poet is like the prince of clouds Who haunts the tempest and laughs at the archer; Exiled on the ground in the midst of jeers, His giant wings prevent him from walking.
Evil comes up softly like a flower.
How many years of fatigue and punishment it takes to learn the simple truth that work, that disagreeable thing, is the only way of not suffering in life, or at all events, of suffering less.
The People adore authority.
Pure draughtsmen are philosophers and dialecticians. Colourists are epic poets.
All good and genuine draftsmen draw according to the picture inscribed in their minds, and not according to nature.
As for techniques and processes, as seen in the works themselves, neither public nor artists will find anything about them here. Those things are learned in the studio and the public is interested only in the results.
Nothing in a portrait is a matter of indifference. Gesture, grimace, clothing, decor even – all must combine to realize a character.
There is a certain cowardice, a certain weakness, rather, among respectable folk. Only brigands are convinced-of what? That they must succeed. And so they do succeed.
Man loves man so much that when he flees the city, it is still to seek the crowd, that is, to rebuild the city in the country.
Il faut e pater le bourgeois. One must astound the bourgeois.