Be something, be yourself; if not, ]then] throw your palette in the fire. Form a school if you wish, but it must come from the inside of you, but you… - Paul Joseph Constantin Gabriël

(Gabriël raadde haar aan zowel grote studies te maken als kleine:) [en de kleine studies,] ..om in drie vloeken en een zucht, vergeeft mij die banale uitdrukking, indrukken, voorbijgaande effecten, op het doek te werpen. Opserveerd vooral goed de toon van elk voorkomend oogenblik.

'Peintre Paysagiste des Polders Hollandais', ('Landscape Painter of the Dutch Polders')

Oh, for that matter you must look carefully how in every region of our country the map looks completely different. Not only the pastures have different shades, but the cows are different, yes even the people have, as it were, adopted the character of the soil [where] they were born and raised. That is so evident, that when I still stayed with Roelofs in Brussels [early 1860's] and we used to go to Holland to make our studies in the beautiful part of the season, coming home Roelofs didn't have to tell me where he had been. I recognized it in his work and one by one I called him the spots of our homeland [The Netherlands], where he had made sketches of the countryside and its residents during his study trip. (translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek)