EUGENE DELACROIX

Do all the work you can; that is the whole philosophy of the good way of life.

A taste for simplicity cannot endure for long.

Do not be troubled for a language, cultivate your soul and she will show herself.

The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing.

If one considered life as a simple loan, one would perhaps be less exacting. We possess actually nothing; everything goes through us.

Talent does whatever it wants to do. Genius does only what it can.

Nature is a dictionary; one draws words from it.

What moves those of genius, what inspires their work is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.

All revolutions invariably encourage bad characters and potential criminals.

You increase your self-respect when you feel you've done everything you ought to have done, and if there is nothing else to enjoy, there remains that chief of pleasures, the feeling of being pleased with oneself. A man gets an immense amount of satisfaction from the knowledge of having done good work and of having made the best use of his day, and when I am in this state I find that I thoroughly enjoy my rest and even the mildest forms of recreation.

We work not only to produce, but to give value to time.

Perfect beauty implies perfect simplicity, a quality that at first sight does not arouse the emotions which we feel before gigantic works, objects whose very disproportion constitutes an element of beauty.

Everyone knows that yellow, orange, and red suggest ideas of joy and plenty. I can paint you the skin of Venus with mud, provided you let me surround it as I will.

Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who can't attain it in anything.

Remember the enemy of all painting is gray: a painting will almost always appear grayer than it is, on account of its oblique position under the light.

In every art we are always obliged to return to the accepted means of expression, the conventional language of the art. What is a black-and-white drawing but a convention to which the beholder has become so accustomed that with his mind's eye he sees a complete equivalent in the translation from nature?

A fine suggestion, a sketch with great feeling, can be as expressive as the most finished product.

I have told myself a hundred times that painting - that is, the material thing called a painting - is no more than a pretext, the bridge between the mind of the painter and the mind of the spectator.

Always, at the back of your soul, there is something that says to you, 'Mortal, drawn from eternal life for a short time, think how precious these moments are.

The contour should come last, only a very experienced eye can place it rightly.

One must learn to be grateful for one's own findings.

Weaknesses in men of genius are usually an exaggeration of their personal feeling; in the hands of feeble imitators they become the most flagrant blunders. Entire schools have been founded on misinterpretations of certain aspects of the masters. Lamentable mistakes have resulted from the thoughtless enthusiasm with which men have sought inspiration from the worst qualities of remarkable artists because they are unable to reproduce the sublime elements in their work.

The artist is always concerned with a total view of the world. However, when the photographer takes a picture ... the edge of his picture is just as interesting as the middle, one can only guess at the existence of a whole, and the view presented seems chosen by chance.

If I haven't fought for my country at least I'll paint for her.

Nature creates unity even in the parts of a whole.