The artist vocation is to send light into the human heart.

Work is not man's punishment. It is his reward and his strength and his pleasure.

One approaches the journey's end. But the end is a goal, not a catastrophe.

One changes from day to day, and... after a few years have passed one has completely altered.

Life resembles a novel more often than novels resemble life.

I see upon their noble brows the seal of the Lord, for they were born kings of the earth far more truly than those who possess it only from having bought it.

Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.

Charity degrades those who receive it and hardens those who dispense it.

The artist vocation is to send light into the human heart.

We cannot tear out a single page of our life, but we can throw the whole book in the fire.

Faith is an excitement and an enthusiasm: it is a condition of intellectual magnificence to which we must cling as to a treasure, and not squander on our way through life in the small coin of empty words, or in exact and priggish argument.

Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.

The trade of authorship is a violent, and indestructible obsession.

Admiration and familiarity are strangers.

The prayers of a lover are more imperious than the menaces of the whole world.

There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.

Vanity is the quicksand of reason.

Life in common among people who love each other is the ideal of happiness.

Women love always: when earth slips from them, they take refuge in heaven.

Every historian discloses a new horizon.

No one makes a revolution by himself; and there are some revolutions which humanity accomplishes without quite knowing how, because it is everybody who takes them in hand.

He who draws noble delights from sentiments of poetry is a true poet, though he has never written a line in all his life.

Try to keep your soul young and quivering right up to old age.

The beauty that addresses itself to the eyes is only the spell of the moment; the eye of the body is not always that of the soul.

Simplicity is the most difficult thing to secure in this world; it is the last limit of experience and the last effort of genius.

Once my heart was captured, reason was shown the door, deliberately and with a sort of frantic joy. I accepted everything, I believed everything, without struggle, without suffering, without regret, without false shame. How can one blush for what one adores?

I have no enthusiasm for nature which the slightest chill will not instantly destroy.

No human creature can give orders to love.

There is only one happiness in this life: to love and be loved.

Happiness lies in the consciousness we have of it and by no means in the way the future keeps its promises.

The cigar is the perfect complement to an elegant lifestyle.

A cigar numbs sorrow and fills the solitary hours with a million gracious images.

Discouragement seizes us only when we can no longer count on chance.

Faith is an excitement and an enthusiasm it is a condition of intellectual magnificence to which we must cling as to a treasure and not squander on our way through life in the small coin of empty words or in exact and priggish argument.

Guard well within yourself that treasure kindness. Know how to give without hesitation how to lose without regret how to acquire without meanness.

There is only one happiness in life to love and be loved.

One approaches journey's end. But the end is a goal, not a catastrophe.

There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.

There is only one happiness in life -- to love and to be loved.

Oblivion is the flower that grows best on graves.

Know how to replace in your heart, by the happiness of those you love, the happiness that may be wanting to yourself

Nothing resembles selfishness more closely than self-respect.

God abandons only those who abandon themselves, and whoever has the courage to shut up his sorrow within his own heart is stronger to fight against it than he who complains.

Let us accept truth, even when it surprises us and alters our views.

The trade of authorship is a violent, and indestructible obsession.

Unrequited love differs from mutual love, just like delusion differs from the truth.

Being a cover artist is not like being a real artist. That's just copying what someone else did.

The artist need not know very much; best of all let him work instinctively and paint as naturally as he breathes or walks.

What an artist learns matters little. What he himself discovers has a real worth for him, and gives him the necessary incitement to work.