Henri Matisse

“The importance of an artist is to be measured by the quantity of new signs which he has introduced to the language of art.”

“I do not distinguish between the construction of a book and that of a painting and I always proceed from the simple to the complex." - 1946”

“Whoever wishes to devote himself to painting should begin by cutting out his own tongue”

“I am unable to make any distinction between the feeling I get from life and the way I translate that feeling into painting.”

“Derive happiness in oneself from a good day’s work, from illumination the fog that surround”

“You study, you learn, but you guard the original naïveté. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.”

“To arrive is to be in prison.”

“You must forget all your theories, all your ideas before the subject. What part of these is really your own will be expressed in your expression of the emotion awakened in you by the subject.”

“Nothing can be accomplished without love. ”

“I didn't expect to recover from my second operation but since I did, I consider that I'm living on borrowed time. Every day that dawns is a gift to me and I take it in that way. I accept it gratefully without looking beyond it. I completely forget my physical suffering and all the unpleasantness of my present condition and I think only of the joy of seeing the sun rise once more and of being able to work a little bit, even under difficult conditions.”

“I don't know whether I believe in God or not. I think, really, I'm some kind of a Buddhist. But the essential thing is to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer.”

“To look at something as though we had never seen it before requires great courage.”

“Time extracts various values from a painter's work. When these values are exhausted the pictures are forgotten, and the more a picture has to give, the greater it is.”

“Another word for creativity is courage.”

“We ought to view ourselves with the same curiosity and openness with which we study a tree, the sky or a thought, because we too are linked to the entire universe.”

“Exactitude is not truth.”

“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”

“...for whether we want to or not, we belong to our time and we share in its opinions, its feelings, even its delusions.”

“Creativity takes courage. ”

“I am unable to distinguish between the feeling I have for life and my way of expressing it.”

“Si je crois en Dieu? Oui, quand je travaille. Quand je suis soumis et modeste, je me sens tellement aidé par quelqu'un qui me fait faire des choses qui me surpassent.”