Quotes from Henri Matisse
I have been no more than a medium, as it were.
- Henri Matisse
I don't know whether I believe in God or not. I think, really, I'm some sort of Buddhist. But the essential thing is to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer.
- Henri Matisse
My curves are not crazy.
- Henri Matisse
I have simply wished to assert the reasoned and independent feeling of my own individuality within a total knowledge of tradition.
- Henri Matisse
When I started to paint I felt transported into a kind of paradise... In everyday life I was usually bored and vexed... Starting to paint I felt gloriously free.
- Henri Matisse
What interests me most is neither still life nor landscape, but the human figure.
- Henri Matisse
I was driven on by.. A force which I see today as something alien to my normal life... so I have been no more than a medium as it were.
- Henri Matisse
The effort to see things without distortion takes something like courage and this courage is essential to the artist, who has to look at everything as though he saw it for the first time.
- Henri Matisse
I have always tried to hide my efforts and wished my works to have a light joyousness of springtime which never lets anyone suspect the labors it has cost me.
- Henri Matisse
Nothing can be accomplished without love.
- Henri Matisse
You study, you learn, but you guard the original naivete. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.
- Henri Matisse
Hatred is a parasite that devours all. One doesn't build upon hatred, but upon love.
- Henri Matisse