Henri Matisse

“What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter.”

“Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.”

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

“Creativity takes courage.”

“Don't wait for inspiration. It comes while working.”

“An artist must never be a prisoner of himself, prisoner of a style, prisoner of a reputation, prisoner of success.”

“I don't paint things. I only paint the difference between things.”

“The essential thing is to work in a state of mind that approaches prayer.”

“Derive happiness in oneself from a good day's work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us.”

“He who loves, flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free and nothing holds him back.”

“Exactitude is not truth.”

“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.”

“It has bothered me all my life that I do not paint like everybody else.”

“From the moment I held the box of colors in my hands, I knew this was my life. I threw myself into it like a beast that plunges towards the thing it loves.”

“A young painter who cannot liberate himself from the influence of past generations is digging his own grave.”

“I am for the new, the unknown.”

“I am unable to make any distinction between the feeling I get from life and my way of expressing it.”

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

“Work cures everything.”

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