With a limited palette, the older painters could do just as well as today what they did was sounder.

My concern has always been to paint nudes as if they were some splendid fruit.

Go and see what others have produced, but never copy anything except nature. You would be trying to enter into a temperament that is not yours and nothing that you would do would have any character.

You come to nature with all her theories, and she knocks them all flat.

Be a good craftsman; it won't stop you from being a genius.

"The work of art must seize upon you...carry you away."

If you paint the leaf on a tree without using a model, your imagination will only supply you with a few leaves; but Nature offers you millions, all on the same tree. No two leaves are exactly the same. The artist who paints only what is in his mind must very soon repeat himself.