In England it is enough for a man to try and produce any serious, beautiful work to lose all his rights as a citizen.

Nowadays to be intelligible is to be found out.

I love to talk about nothing. It's the only thing I know anything about.

The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible.

Most of our modern portrait painters are doomed to absolute oblivion. They never paint what they see. They paint what the public sees, and the public never sees anything.

Art persists, it timelessly continues.

Would you like to know the great drama of my life? It is that I have put my genius into my life...I have put only my talent into my works.