A weaver who has to direct and to interweave a great many little threads has no time to philosophize about it, but rather he is so absorbed in his work that he doesn't think but acts, and he feels how things must go more than he can explain it.

What a simple thing death is, just as simple as the falling of an autumn leaf.

Often whole days pass without my speaking to anyone.

One begins by plaguing oneself to no purpose in order to be true to nature, and one concludes by working quietly from one's own palette alone, and then nature is the result.

l can do very well without God both in my life and in my painting, but l cannot, ill as I am, do without something which is greater than l, which is my life — the power to create.

The world concerns me only in so far as I have a certain debt and duty to it, because I have lived in it for thirty years and owe to it to leave behind some souvenir in the shape of drawings and paintings – not done to please any particular movement, but within which a genuine human sentiment is expressed.

One must never let the fire go out in one's soul, but keep it burning.