I am fifty years old and I have always lived in freedom; let me end my life free; when I am dead let this be said of me: 'He belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, least of all to any regime except the regime of liberty.'

Fine art is knowledge made visible.

France is the only nation in which astoundingly small numbers of civilized patrons reside.

I have never seen either angels or goddesses, so I am not interested in painting them.

I hope to live all my life for my art, without abandoning my principles one iota.

The beautiful is in nature, and it is encountered under the most diverse forms of reality. Once it is found it belongs to art, or rather to the artist who discovers it.

Beauty, like truth, is relative to the time when one lives and to the individual who can grasp it.