I remember that, although I was full of fervour, I didn't have the slightest inkling, even at forty, of the deeper side to the movement we were pursuing by instinct. It was in the air!

I regard it as a waste of time to think only of selling: one forgets one's art and exaggerates one's value.

It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character.

Paint the essential character of things.

It is absurd to look for perfection.

Observe that it is a great error to believe that all mediums of art are not closely tied to their time.

Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.

I sometimes have a horrible fear of turning up a canvas of mine. I'm always afraid of finding a monster in place of the precious jewels I thought I had put there!

Cover the canvas at the first go, then work at it until you see nothing more to add.

Everything is beautiful, all that matters is to be able to interpret.

When you do a thing with your whole soul and everything that is noble within you, you always find your counterpart.

Work at the same time on sky, water, branches, ground, keeping everything going on an equal basis... Don't be afraid of putting on colour... Paint generously and unhesitatingly, for it is best not to lose the first impression.

God takes care of imbeciles, little children and artists.

Don't be afraid in nature: one must be bold, at the risk of having been deceived and making mistakes.

I began to understand my sensations, to know what I wanted, at around the age of forty - but only vaguely.

At fifty, that is in 1880, I formulated the idea of unity, without being able to render it. At sixty, I am beginning to see the possibility of rendering it.

I remember that, although I was full of fervour, I didn't have the slightest inkling, even at forty, of the deeper side to the movement we were pursuing by instinct. It was in the air!

Cover the canvas at the first go then work at it until you see nothing more to add.

It is only by drawing often drawing everything drawing incessantly that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character.

I think that instinct, that storytelling instinct, rescued me most of my life.

Ideas pull the trigger, but instinct loads the gun.

A good short-story writer has an instinct for sketching in just enough background to ground the specific story.

This horror of pain is a rather low instinct and... if I think of human beings I've known and of my own life, such as it is, I can't recall any case of pain which didn't, on the whole, enrich life.

My mum says, 'Go with your first instinct,' but this can lead to impulse buying!

To be womanly is one thing, and one only; it is to be sensitive to man, to be highly endowed with the sex instinct; to be manly is to be sensitive to woman.

I generally wade in blind and trust to fate and instinct to see me through.

Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don't start measuring her limbs.

To revolt is a natural tendency of life. Even a worm turns against the foot that crushes it. In general, the vitality and relative dignity of an animal can be measured by the intensity of its instinct to revolt.

The instinct to worship is hardly less strong than the instinct to eat.

It was an instinct to put the world in order that powered her mending split infinitives and snipping off dangling participles, smoothing away the knots and bumps until the prose before her took on a sheen, like perfect caramel.

Your instinct, rather than precision stabbing, is more about just random bludgeoning.

The instinct to impersonate produces the actor; the desire to provide pleasure by impersonations produces the playwright; the desire to provide this pleasure with adequate characterization and dialogue memorable in itself produces dramatic literature.

Love between a man and a woman is founded on the mating instinct and is not free from desire and self-seeking. But to have a friend and to be true under any and all trials is the mark of a man!

To live is like to love - all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.

Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct; but to find these reasons is no less an instinct.

You needn't tell me that a man who doesn't love oysters and asparagus and good wines has got a soul, or a stomach either. He's simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly developed.

Bullies are always cowards at heart and may be credited with a pretty safe instinct in scenting their prey.

It's a perfectly human instinct to want to be near water.

Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

Yet otters have not been hunters in water long enough for the habit to become an instinct.

Surely we have always acted; it is an instinct inherent in all of us. Some of us are better at it than others, but we all do it.

I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is opposed to every instinct in my body. But as president I must put the interests of America first Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow.

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls.

I have long enjoyed the friendship and companionship of Republicans because I am by instinct a teacher, and I would like to teach them something.

I go by instinct - I don't worry about experience.

Reasoning at every step he treads, Man yet mistakes his way, Whilst meaner things, whom instinct leads, Are rarely known to stray.

I had this instinct and I just knew it. It was a very strange thing and as soon as I finished recording it, we were all in the studio saying we have something really special here.

Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule.