Quotes from Henri Rousseau

Nothing makes me so happy as to observe nature and to paint what I see.

Nature's instructions are always slow; those of men are generally premature.

Politeness requires this thing; decorum that; ceremony has its forms, and fashion its laws, and these must always follow, never the promptings of our own nature.

The happiest is he who suffers the least pain; the most miserable, he who enjoys the least pleasure.

Excuse my scribbling, it is late, and I have a poor candle.

God created man in his own image. And man, being a gentleman, returned the favor.

The first man to fence in a piece of land, saying "this is mine" and who found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society.

The more humanity owes the poor man, the more society denies him.

If a king tries to start a war, a mother should go to him and forbid it.

From the first moment of life, men ought to begin learning to deserve to live.

If it is reason that forms man then it is the emotions that guide her.

The passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces a very remarkable change in man, by substituting justice for instinct in his conduct.

When I go out into the countryside and see the sun and the green and everything flowering, I say to myself Yes indeed, all that belongs to me!

It is not I that am drawing, it is this thing at the end of my hand.

I cannot now change my style, which I acquired, as you can imagine, by dint of labour.

I have always believed that good is only beauty put into practice.