"There are two indices of genuine art: it is inimitable and it is ineffable."

"I had wrung impressionism dry and I finally came to the conclusion that I know neither how to paint nor how to draw."

"Nothing costs so little, goes so far, and accomplishes so much as a single act of merciful service."

"I just keep painting till I feel like pinching. Then I know it's right."

"An artist, under pain of oblivion, must have confidence in himself, and listen only to his real master: Nature."

"If the painter works directly from nature, he ultimately looks for nothing but momentary effects; he does not try to compose, and soon he gets monotonous."

"You haven't time to think about the composition. In working directly from nature, the painter ends up by simply aiming at an effect, and not composing the picture at all; and he soon becomes monotonous."

"You've got to be a fool to want to stop the march of time."

"And if out of a million visitors there is even one to whom art means something, that is enough to justify museums."

"Everybody has their reasons."

"I arrange my subject as I want it, then I go ahead and paint it, like a child."

"About 1883 something like a break occurred in my work. I had reached the end of 'impressionism,' and I had come to realize that I did not know how to paint or draw."

"I never think I have finished a nude until I think I could pinch it."

"The more they measure, the more they realize how much the Greeks departed from regular and banal lines in order to produce their effect."

"People love to be nice, but you must give them the chance."

"You don't talk about paintings, you look at them."

"Art is about emotion; if art needs to be explained it is no longer art."

"White does not exist in nature."

"One must from time to time attempt things that are beyond one's capacity."

"It's with my brush that I make love."

"Go and see what others have produced, but never copy anything except nature. You would be trying to enter into a temperament that is not yours and nothing that you would do would have any character."

"The advantage of growing old is that you become aware of your mistakes more quickly."

"You come to nature with all her theories, and she knocks them all flat."

"We are in a period of searchers rather than of creators."