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.

One does not marry art. One ravishes it.

Hitherto the nude has always been represented in poses which presuppose an audience. But my women are simple, honest creatures who are concerned with nothing beyond their physical occupations... it is as if you were looking through a keyhole.

Art is vice. One does not wed it, one rapes it.

You have to have a high conception, not of what you are doing, but of what you may do one day: without that, there's no point in working.

What is certain is that setting a piece of nature in place and drawing it are two very different things.

C'est vrai. Voilá quelqu'un qui sent comme moi. (It is true. There is someone who feels as I do).