Quotes from Paul Gauguin

It is useless to advise solitude for everyone; one must be strong enough to endure it and to work alone.

Without delay I began work, without hesitation and all of a fever.

The work of a man is the explanation of the man.

Why work? The gods are there to lavish upon the faithful the good gifts of nature.

Happiness and work rose up together with the sun, radiant like it.

In art, there are only two types of people: revolutionaries and plagiarists. And in the end, doesn't the revolutionary's work become official, once the State takes it over?

Art is either revolution or plagiarism

What still concerns me the most is: am I on the right track, am I making progress, am I making mistakes in art?

Art = a mad search for individualism.

It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block.

There is always a heavy demand for fresh mediocrity. In every generation the least cultivated taste has the largest appetite.

There is no such thing as exaggerated art. I even believe that there is salvation only in extreme.

Many excellent cooks are spoilt by going into the arts.

Nothing so resembles a daub as a masterpiece.

In art, all who have done something other than their predecessors have merited the epithet of revolutionary; and it is they alone who are masters.

Art is either plagiarism or revolution.

Machines have come, art has fled, and I am far from thinking photography can help us.

A critic in my house sees some paintings. Greatly perturbed, he asks for my drawings. My drawings? Never! They are my letters, my secrets.

In art there are only two types of people: revolutionaries and plagiarists

Concentrate your strengths against your competitor's relative weaknesses.

A critic is someone who meddles with something that is none of his business.

The landscape with its violent, pure colours dazzled and blinded me. I was always uncertain.

I'd like to write the way I do my paintings, that is, as fantasy takes me, as the moon dictates.

I have always wanted a mistress who was fat, and I have never found one. To make a fool of me, they are always pregnant.