All art is quite useless.

Nothing is really so poor and melancholy as art that is interested in itself and not in its subject.

There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste.

There is no purity in art. The process of how you arrive at something doesn't matter at all.

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.

Art teaches nothing except the significance of life.

It is obvious that art cannot teach anyone anything, since in four thousand years humanity has learnt nothing at all.

Art is of absolutely no use to the masses

Without passion there is no art, only technique.

Art is purposiveness without purpose.

Many are they who have a taste and love for drawing, but no talent; and this will be discernible in boys who are not diligent and never finish their drawings with shading.

No amount of mediocre art adds up to good art.

Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.

Artists who seek perfection in everything achieve it in nothing (14 March 1858)