Les grands artistes n'ont pas de patrie.

Great artists have no country.

Each artist seems thus to be the native of an unknown country, which he himself has forgotten, different from that from which will emerge, making for the earth, another great artist.

The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable.

Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.

The great artists are those who impose their personal vision upon humanity.

As an artist, a man has no home in Europe save in Paris.

The artist cannot look to others to validate his efforts or his calling. If you don't believe me, ask Van Gogh, who produced masterpiece after masterpiece and never found a buyer in his whole life.

The true artist has no pride. He sees unfortunately that art has no limits; he has a vague awareness of how far he is from reaching his goal; and while others may perhaps admire him, he laments the fact that he has not yet reached the point whither his better genius only lights the way for him like a distant sun.

Great artists suffer for the people.

A great artist is never poor.

What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere.

Great sleepless artists who had to die for a few hours in order to live for centuries.

A land liberated from works of art. I despise those who can acknowledge beauty only when it’s already transcribed, interpreted. One thing admirable about the Arabs: they live their art, they sing and scatter it, from day to day; they don’t cling to it, they don’t embalm it in works. Which is the cause and the effect of the absence of great artists. I have always believed the great artists are the ones who dare entitle to beauty things so natural that when they’re seen afterward people say: Why did I never realize before that this too was beautiful?...

Very few great artists feel the giant agony of the world.