... life is too short to do the whole.

As practice makes perfect, I cannot but make progress; each drawing one makes, each study one paints, is a step forward.

One should arrive at leading one's conscience to a state of development so that it becomes the voice of a better and higher self, of which the ordinary self is a servant.

I must continue to follow the path I take now. If I do nothing, if I study nothing, if I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it - keep going, keep going come what may.

As a painter I shall never signify anything of importance. I feel it Absolutely.

I would like to leave this world and never return. I severed my ear, but how I wish that I had severed my heart. I shall never amount to anything.

An artist need not be a minister or a collector in church, but he must have a warm heart for people, and I find it a noble thing that, for example, no winter passed without The Graphic doing something to keep alive sympathy for the poor.