The more ugly, old, nasty, ill, and poor I become the more I want to get my own back by producing vibrant, well-arranged, radiant colour.

Only when I fall do I get up again.

Conscience is a man's compass, and though the needle sometimes deviates, though one often perceives irregularities in directing one's course by it, still one must try to follow its direction.

Man is not on the earth solely for his own happiness. He is there to realize great things for humanity.

But I must work on in full calmness and serenity... The world concerns me only in so far as I feel a certain debt and duty towards it, because I have walked on the earth for thirty years, and out of gratitude want to leave some souvenir in the shape of drawings or pictures, not made to please a certain tendency in art, but to express a sincere human feeling. So this work is the aim-and through concentration upon that one idea, everything one does is simplified. Now the work goes slowly-a reason the more to lose no time.

I use color in a completely arbitrary way in order to express myself powerfully.

Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.