Do all the work you can; that is the whole philosophy of the good way of life.

You increase your self-respect when you feel you've done everything you ought to have done, and if there is nothing else to enjoy, there remains that chief of pleasures, the feeling of being pleased with oneself. A man gets an immense amount of satisfaction from the knowledge of having done good work and of having made the best use of his day, and when I am in this state I find that I thoroughly enjoy my rest and even the mildest forms of recreation.

The source of genius is imagination alone, the refinement of the senses that sees what others do not see, or sees them differently.

What moves those of genius, what inspires their work is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.

If one considered life as a simple loan, one would perhaps be less exacting. We possess actually nothing; everything goes through us.

Glory to that Homer of painting, to that father of warmth and enthusiasm... he really paints men.

The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing.