Quotes from Auguste Rodin

The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live. Be a man before being an artist!

Man's naked form belongs to no particular moment in history; it is eternal, and can be looked upon with joy by the people of all ages.

I am like a moon that shines on an immense, unknown sea where ships never pass

The artist is the confidant of nature, flowers carry on dialogues with him through the graceful bending of their stems and the harmoniously tinted nuances of their blossoms. Every flower has a cordial word which nature directs towards him.

Nothing is wasted of time if you use the xperience wisely.

Even with all the documents, you can never forge nature

In art, immorality cannot exist. Art is always sacred.

It is the artist who is truthful, while the photographer is mendacious; for, in reality, time never stops cold.

The dazzling splendour revealed to the artist by the model that divests herself of her clothes has the effect of the sun piercing the clouds. Venus, Eve, these are feeble terms to express the beauty of women.

Sculpture is the art of the hole and the lump.

There is grace in elegance, but beyond grace there is perfection

For him life is an endless joy, a perpetual delight, a mad intoxication. Not all seems good to him, for suffering, which must often come to those he loves and to himself, cruelly contradicts his optimism. But all is beautiful to him because he walks forever in the light of spiritual truth.

At times his own heart is on the rack, yet stronger than his pain is the bitter joy which he experiences in understanding and giving expression to that pain.

He salutes ingratitude as an experience which shall enrich his soul. His ecstasy is terrifying at times, but it is still happiness, because it is the continual adoration of truth.

When he sees beings everywhere destroying each other; when he sees all youth fading, all strength failing, all genius dying, when he is face to face with the will which decreed these tragic laws, more than ever he rejoices in his knowledge, and, seized anew by the passion for truth, he is happy.

The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live.

An artist worthy of the name should express all the truth of nature, not only the exterior truth, but also, and above all, the inner truth.

To any artist, worthy of the name, all in nature is beautiful, because his eyes, fearlessly accepting all exterior truth, read there, as in an open book, all the inner truth.

The artist is the confidant of nature, flowers carry on dialogues with him through the graceful bending of their stems and the harmoniously tinted nuances of their blossoms. Every flower has a cordial word which nature directs towards him.

The artist must create a spark before he can make a fire and before art is born, the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his own creation.

Love your calling with passion, it is the meaning of your life.

The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live. Be a man before being an artist!

Nothing is wasted of time if you use the xperience wisely.

People say I think too much about women, yet, after all what is there more important to think about?