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.

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

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 artist must create a spark before he can make a fire and before art is born, the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his own creation.

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

The human body is first and foremost a mirror to the soul and its greatest beauty comes from that.

Nobody does good to men with impunity.