Paul Gauguin Quotes

“A woman wants to be free. That is her right. And of course, the man is not the one who disturbs her.

From the day when a woman's honor is no longer placed below the navel, she will be free. And perhaps much healthier.”

“Absinthe is the only decent drink that suits an artist.”

“Art is either revolution or plagiarism.”

“Art requires philosophy, just as philosophy requires art. Otherwise, what would become of beauty?”

“Be in love, you will be happy.”

“Civilization is what makes you sick.”

“Color which, like music, is a matter of vibrations, reaches what is most general and therefore most indefinable in nature: its inner power.”

“Concentrate your strengths against your competitor's relative weaknesses.”

“Do what you like, so long as it is intelligent.”

“Don't over finish your work. There is value to done.”

“Don't paint from nature too much. Art is an abstraction. Derive this abstraction from nature while dreaming before it, and think more of the creation that will result.”

“How do you see this tree? Is it green? Don't be afraid to paint it as green as possible.”

“I am a child. I'm an independent. They can not mock me for two things they are not. They blame me, especially your family. They do not know what is in the artist's nature.

Let me live like this for some time. I continue along my path. I have a goal. I will prove to you that I am right.

I am a great artist, I know that. That's why I endure so much suffering to follow my calling. Otherwise I would feel like a villain. There will come a day when our children can face anyone with their father's name to protect and honor.”

“I find everything poetic, and it’s in the corners of my heart which are sometimes mysterious that I catch a glimpse of poetry… I feel a sensation that leads me into a poetic state…”

“I recognize no other truth than the truth of the artistic lie.”

“I shut my eyes in order to see.”

“I tried to make everything breathe in this painting: faith, quiet suffering, religious and primitive style, and great nature with its scream.”

“I want only silence, silence and again silence. Let me die quite and forgotten, or if I must live, let me live more quite, and forgotten still.”

“In art, all who have done something other than their predecessors have merited the epithet of revolutionary; and it is they alone who are masters.”

“In the art of literature there are two contending parties. Those who aim to tell stories that are more or less well thought out, and those who aim at beautiful language, beauty of form.

This contest may last a very long time; each side has a fifty-fifty chance. Only the poet can rightfully demand that verse be beautiful and nothing but.”

“It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block.”

“Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge.”

“Life has no meaning unless one lives it with a will, at least to the limit of one's will. Virtue, good, evil are nothing but words, unless one takes them apart in order to build something with them; they do not win their true meaning until one knows how to apply them.”

“Life is hardly more than a fraction of a second. Such a little time to prepare oneself for eternity!”

“Many excellent cooks are spoilt by going into the arts.”

“Shut your eyes in order to see.”

“Stressing output is the key to improving productivity, while looking to increase activity can result in just the opposite.”

“The cyclone ends. The sun returns; the lofty coconut trees lift up their plumes again; man does likewise. The great anguish is over; joy has returned; the sea smiles like a child.”

“The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art's audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.”

“There is always a heavy demand for fresh mediocrity. In every generation the least cultivated taste has the largest appetite.”