Auguste Rodin Quotes

I have unbounded admiration for the nude. I worship it like a god.

Mere exactitude, of which photography and moulage [life casting] are the lowest forms, does not inspire feelings.

I invent nothing, I rediscover.

Nobody does good to men with impunity.

The realities of nature surpass our most ambitious dreams.

Mystery is like a kind of atmosphere which bathes the greatest works of the masters.

Inside you there's an artist you don't know about. He's not interested in how things look different in moonlight.

Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.

The artist has only to trust his eyes.

A mediocre man copying nature will never produce a work of art, because he really looks without seeing, and though he may have noted each detail minutely, the result will be flat and without character... the artist on the contrary, sees; that is to say, his eye, grafted on his heart, reads deeply into the bosom of nature.

The more simple we are, the more complete we become.

Man enjoys living on the edge of his dreams and neglects the real things of the world which are so beautiful. The ignorant and indifferent destroy beautiful things merely by looking at the marble. Things that remake the soul of him who understands them.

It is the artist who is truthful and it is photography which lies, for in reality time does not stop

I am like a moon that shines on an immense, unknown sea where ships never pass

The modes of expression of men of genius differ as much as their souls, and it is impossible to say that in some among them, drawing and color are better or worse than in others.

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.

I would have to talk for a year to repeat a single on of my works with words.

The sculptor represents the transition from one pose to another he indicates how insensibly the first glides into the second. In his work we still see a part of what was and we discover a part of what is to be.

In art, immorality cannot exist. Art is always sacred.

There is no need to create. Genius comes only to those who know how to use their eyes and their intelligence.

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.

What is commonly called ugliness in nature can in art become full of beauty.

The nude alone is well dressed

Even with all the documents, you can never forge nature

Sculpture is the art of the hole and the lump.

What is drawing? Not once in describing the shape of the mass did I shift my eyes from the model. Why? Because I wanted to be sure that nothing evaded my grasp of it... My objective is to test to what extent my hands already feel what my eyes see.

The work of art is already within the block of marble. I just chop off whatever isn't needed.

To the artist there is never anything ugly in nature

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.

Art is the pleasure of a spirit that enters nature and discovers that it too has a soul.

He who is discouraged after a failure is not a real artist.

Recently I have taken to isolating limbs, the torso. Why am I blamed for it? Why is the head allowed and not portions of the body? Every part of the human figure is expressive.

One must work, nothing but work, and one must have patience.

There is a continual exchange of ideas between all minds of a generation. Journalists, popular novelists, illustrators, and cartoonists adapt the truths discovered by the powerful intellects for the multitude. It is like a spiritual flood, like a gush that pours into multiple cascades until it forms the great moving sheet of water that stands for the mentality of a period.

My drawings are the result of my sculpture.

I believe that photography can create great works of art, but hitherto it has been extraordinarily bourgeois and babbling. (1908)

Man's naked form belongs to no particular moment in history; it is eternal, and can be looked upon with joy by the people of all ages.

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.

True artists are almost the only men who do their work for pleasure.

I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need.

The body always expresses the spirit whose envelope it is. And for him who can see, the nude offers the richest meaning.

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.

The delicate droop of the petals standing out in relief, is like the eyelid of a child.

The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live. Be a man before being an artist!

There is nothing ugly in art except that which is without character, that is to say, that which offers no outer or inner truth.

Love your calling with passion, it is the meaning of your life.

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.

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.