I put it [picture "A still life of a pear" by Edouard Manet] there [on the wall, next to the picture "Jupiter and Thetis" by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres], for a pear like that would overthrow any god.

If I could have had my own way, I would have confined myself to black and white.

The museums are here to teach the history of art and something more as well, for, if they stimulate in the weak a desire to imitate, they furnish the strong with the means of their emancipation.

Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.

I would have been in mortal misery all my life for fear my wife might say, "That's a pretty little thing," after I had finished a picture.

Your pictures would have been finished a long time ago if I were not forced every day to do something to earn money.

People call me the painter of dancers, but I really wish to capture movement itself.