Art should be independent of all clap-trap - should stand alone, and appeal to the artistic sense of eye or ear, without confounding this with emotions entirely foreign to it, as devotion, pity, love, patriotism and the like. All these have no kind of concern with it; and that is why I insist on calling my works 'arrangements' and 'harmonies.

It takes a long time for a man to look like his portrait.

It is for the artist... in portrait painting to put on canvas something more than the face the model wears for that one day; to paint the man, in short, as well as his features.

Art happens-no hovel is safe from it, no prince may depend upon it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about.

A picture is finished when all trace of the means used to bring about the end has disappeared.

For art and joy go together, with bold openness, and high head, and ready hand - fearing naught and dreading no exposure.

The rare few, who, early in life have rid themselves of the friendship of the many.