142 Quotes by Edgar Degas

I should like to be famous and unknown.

Art critic! Is that a profession? When I think we are stupid enough, we painters, to solicit those people's compliments and to put ourselves into their hands! What shame! Should we even accept that they talk about our work?

C'est vrai. Voilá quelqu'un qui sent comme moi. (It is true. There is someone who feels as I do).

Even in front of nature one must compose.

What a horrible thing yellow is.

For those who don't know what they are doing, painting is easy. For those who do know what they are doing, painting is difficult.

A painting is above all a product of the artist's imagination, it must never be a copy. If, at a later stage, he wants to add two or three touches from nature, of course it doesn't spoil anything.

Make portraits of people in typical, familiar poses, being sure above all to give their faces the same kind of expression as their bodies.

Only two of my personalities are schizophrenic, but one of them is paranoid and the other one is out to get him. Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.