"It is those who have this imperative demand for the best in their natures, and who will accept nothing short of it, that holds the banners of progress, that set the standards, the ideals, for others."

"Just make up your mind at the very outset that your work is going to stand for quality... that you are going to stamp a superior quality upon everything that goes out of your hands, that whatever you do shall bear the hall-mark of excellence."

"Make it a life-rule to give your best to whatever passes through your hands. Stamp it with your manhood. Let superiority be your trademark..."

"People who have accomplished work worthwhile have had a very high sense of the way to do things. They have not been content with mediocrity. They have not confined themselves to the beaten tracks; they have never been satisfied to do things just as others so them, but always a little better. They always pushed things that came to their hands a little higher up, this little farther on, that counts in the quality of life's work. It is constant effort to be first-class in everything one attempts that conquers the heights of excellence."

"To my mind, a picture should be something pleasant, cheerful, and pretty, yes pretty! There are too many unpleasant things in life as it is without creating still more of them."

"The pain passes, but the beauty remains."

"Why shouldn’t art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world."

"One morning, one of us ran out of the black, it was the birth of Impressionism."

"Work lovingly done is the secret of all order and all happiness."

"Regularity, order, desire for perfection destroy art. Irregularity is the basis of all art."

"What seems most significant to me about our movement is that we have freed painting from the importance of the subject. I am at liberty to paint flowers and call them flowers, without their needing to tell a story."

"I've been 40 years discovering that the queen of all colors was black."

"I like a painting which makes me want to stroll in it."

"Why shouldn’t art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world."

"When I've painted a woman's bottom so that I want to touch it, then [the painting] is finished."

"I consider that women who are authors, lawyers, and politicians are monsters."

"Photography freed painting from a lot of tiresome chores, starting with family portraits."

"The work of art must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself, carry you away. It is the means by which the artist conveys his passion; it is the current which he puts forth which sweeps you along in his passion."

"If you paint the leaf on a tree without using a model, your imagination will only supply you with a few leaves; but Nature offers you millions, all on the same tree. No two leaves are exactly the same. The artist who paints only what is in his mind must very soon repeat himself."

"I need to feel the excitement of life stirring around me, and I will always need to feel that."

"I look at a nude. There are myriads of tiny tints. I must find the ones that will make the flesh on my canvas live and quiver."

"There are quite enough unpleasant things in life without the need to manufacture more."

"Why should beauty be suspect?"

"Paint with joy - with the same joy that you would make love to a woman."

"I want a red to be sonorous, to sound like a bell. If it doesn't turn out that way, I add more reds and other colors until I get it."

"-last words about painting, age 78... I think I'm beginning to learn something about it."

"We are in a period of searchers rather than of creators."

"You come to nature with all her theories, and she knocks them all flat."

"The advantage of growing old is that you become aware of your mistakes more quickly."

"Go and see what others have produced, but never copy anything except nature. You would be trying to enter into a temperament that is not yours and nothing that you would do would have any character."

"It's with my brush that I make love."

"One must from time to time attempt things that are beyond one's capacity."

"White does not exist in nature."

"Art is about emotion; if art needs to be explained it is no longer art."

"There's no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love. There isonly a scarcity of resolve to make it happen."

"You can set yourself up to be sick, or you can choose to stay well."

"Self-actualized people are independent of the good opinion of others."

"If we are to have magical bodies, we must have magical minds."

"A transcendent being can be any miracle."

"A am realistic -- I expect miracles."

"There is a big difference between thinking: I'm in a relationship and something's wrong. Therefore something must be wrong with the relationship. and thinking I'm in a relationship and we've got problems. This is evidence that you are different than me."

"Anything that has been accomplished by any other human being in the physical realm is within the field of possibility."

"Each person must decide for himself what he wants each day. As a leader, I will expose you to the options and the likely consequences of those options. I'll even share my opinion if asked, but I'll never confuse it with the opinion, which simply doesn't exist."

"You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside."

"You can never get enough of what you don't want."

"Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life."

"When you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out - because that's what's inside. When you are squeezed, what comes out is what is inside."

"You are always a valuable, worthwhile human being -- not because anybody says so, not because you're successful, not because you make a lot of money -- but because you decide to believe it and for no other reason."

"The concept of boredom entails an inability to use up present moments in a personally fulfilling way."

"Life is never boring, but some people choose to be bored."