I believe that there is no test of greatness in periods, nations or men more sure than the development, among them or in them, of a noble grotesque, and no test of comparative smallness or limitation, of one kind or another, more sure than the absence of grotesque invention, or incapability of understanding it.

Science studies the relations of things to each other: but art studies only their relations to man.

No picture can be good which deceives by its imitation, for the very reason that nothing can be beautiful which is not true.

Remember always, in painting as in eloquence, the greater your strength, the quieter will be your manner, and the fewer your words; and in painting, as in all the arts and acts of life the secret of high success will be found, not in a fretful and various excellence, but in a quiet singleness of justly chosen aim.

Everything that you can see in the world around you presents itself to your eyes only as an arrangement of patches of different colors.

Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.

No divine terror will ever be found in the work of the man who wastes a colossal strength in elaborating toys; for the first lesson that terror is sent to teach us is, the value of the human soul, and the shortness of mortal time.