I feel ever so strongly that an artist must be nourished by his passions and his despairs. These things alter an artist whether for the good or the better or the worse. It must alter him. The feelings of desperation and unhappiness are more useful to an artist than the feeling of contentment, because desperation and unhappiness stretch your whole sensibility.

Truth comes out of error more readily than out of confusion.

Men seem neither to understand their riches nor their strength. Of the former they believe greater things than they should; of the latter, less.

The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies.

If you can talk about it, why paint it?

The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.