There are unknown forces in nature; when we give ourselves wholly to her, without reserve, she lends them to us; she shows us these forms, which our ….

My drawings are the result of my sculpture..

One must work, nothing but work, and one must have patience..

He who is discouraged after a failure is not a real artist..

What is drawing? Not once in describing the shape of the mass did I shift my eyes from the model. Why? Because I wanted to be sure that nothing evade….

The body always expresses the spirit whose envelope it is. And for him who can see, the nude offers the richest meaning..

The artist is the confidant of nature, flowers carry on dialogues with him through the graceful bending of their stems and the harmoniously tinted nu….

To the artist there is never anything ugly in nature.

Mere exactitude, of which photography and moulage [life casting] are the lowest forms, does not inspire feelings..

A mediocre man copying nature will never produce a work of art, because he really looks without seeing, and though he may have noted each detail minu….

I know very well that one must fight, for one is often in contradiction to the spirit of the age..

Even with all the documents, you can never forge nature.

I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need..

The artist has only to trust his eyes..

The modes of expression of men of genius differ as much as their souls, and it is impossible to say that in some among them, drawing and color are be….

I have unbounded admiration for the nude. I worship it like a god..

I would have to talk for a year to repeat a single on of my works with words..

I grant you that the artist does not see Nature as she appears to the vulgar, because his emotion reveals to him the hidden truths beneath appearance….

The only principle in art is to copy what you see. Dealers in aesthetics to the contrary, every other method is fatal..

There is nothing ugly in art except that which is without character, that is to say, that which offers no outer or inner truth..

Sculpture is the art of the hole and the lump..