Henri Quotes

Feel the dignity of a child. Do not feel superior to him, for you are not.

Whatever you feel or think your exact state at the exact moment of your brush touching the canvas is in some way registered in that stroke.

Colors are beautiful when they are significant.

To be free, to be happy and to be fruitful, can only be attained through sacrifice of many common but overestimated things.

Self-acquainta nce is a rare condition.

Artists must be men of wit, consciously or unconsciously philosophers; read, study and think a great deal of life.

Be a warhorse for work and enjoy even the struggle against defeat.

Everything depends on the attitude of the artist toward his subject. It is essential.

Fight with yourself when you paint, not with the model. A student is one who struggles with himself for order.

Pretend you are dancing or singing a picture.

Count on big lines to express your ideas.

The picture that looks as if it were done without an effort may have been a perfect battlefield in its making.

The most vital things in the look of a landscape endure only for a moment. Work should be done from memory; memory of that vital moment.

The real artist's work is a surprise to himself.

Your style is the way you talk in paint.

The more simply you see, the more simply you will render. People see too much, scatteringly.

I have heard it very often said that an artist does not need intelligence, that his is the province of the soul

The true artist regards his work as a means of talking with men [and women], of saying his say to himself and to others. It is not a question of pay.

All manifestations of art are but landmarks in the progress of the human spirit toward a thing but as yet sensed and far from being possessed.

If you work from memory, you are most likely to put in your real feeling.

By my teaching I hope to inspire you to personal activity and to present your vision.

Do not expect pictures to say the expected; some of the best will have surprises for you, which will, at first, shock you.

Work always as if you were a master, expect from yourself a masterpiece.

Art is certainly not a pursuit for anyone who wants to make money.

Finished persons are very common - people who are closed up, quite satisfied that there is little more to learn

All is as beautiful as we think it.

I don't know whether I believe in God or not. I think, really, I'm some kind of a Buddhist. But the essential thing is to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer.

It is not what he has, nor even what he does, which directly expresses the worth of a man, but what he is.

all appears to change when we change

It’s quite simple. Death isn’t what we think it is. It isn’t life which ends but time which stops.

A belief is not true because it is useful

If the ignorance of nature gave birth to such a variety of gods, the knowledge of this nature is calculated to destroy them.

All children are atheists, they have no idea of God.

Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means pushing back a boundary line and adding to one's liberty.

Prayer is the center of the Christian life. It is the only necessary thing. It is living with God in the here and now.

In solitude we discover that community is not a common ideology, but a response to a common call.

Creativity takes courage.

Your first 10, 000 photographs are your worst.

A common defect of modern art study is that too many students do not know why they draw.

Concentrate on a single feature – as, build all toward one eye – make all lines lead toward that eye. (Robert Henri)

Don't wait for inspiration. It comes while working.

Reality offers us such wealth that we must cut some of it out on the spot, simplify. The question is, do we always cut out what we should? ­

We are troubled by having two selves, the inner and the outer. The outer one is rather dull and lets great things go by.

You can no more look destiny in the face than you can look at the sun, and yet destiny is grey

Our systems, perhaps, are nothing more than an unconscious apology for our faults, a gigantic scaffolding whose object is to hide from us our favorite sin

The important thing was that we were alive...

Forgive those who have made you suffer.

No two moments are identical in a conscious being

Jesus promises a life in which we increasingly have to stretch out our hands and be led into places where we would rather not go.

Jesus changes our history from a random series of sad incidents and accidents into a constant opportunity for a change of heart.