Can any man say with certainty that he was happy at a particular moment of time which he remembers as being delightful? Remembering it certainly make… - Eugène Delacroix

Authorities are the ruination of great talents, and form almost the entire talent of mediocrities. They are the leading strings with which everyone learns to walk at the beginning of their careers, but they almost always leave a permanent mark. People like Ingres never get them out of their systems and never take a step without invoking their help. It is as though they wished to eat bread and milk all their lives (Monday 10th October 1853)

In every art we are always obliged to return to the accepted means of expression, the conventional language of the art. What is a black-and-white drawing but a convention to which the beholder has become so accustomed that with his mind's eye he sees a complete equivalent in the translation from nature?

Each of the beings necessary to our existence who disappears takes away with him a whole world of feelings that no other relationship can revive.