84 Quotes by Marc Chagall

If I create with my heart almost all my intentions remain. If it is with the head – almost nothing. An artist must not fear to be himself, to express only himself. If he is absolutely and entirely sincere, what he says and does will be acceptable to others.

Despite all the troubles of our world, in my heart I have never given up on the love in which I was brought up or on man’s hope in love. In life, just as on the artist’s palette, there is but one single colour that gives meaning to life and art–the colour of love.

Everything in art must spring from the movement of our whole life-stream, of our whole being – including the unconscious.

One must always be careful not to let one’s work be covered with moss.

You could wonder for hours what flowers mean, but for me, they’re life itself, in all its happy brilliance. We couldn’t do with out flowers. Flowers help you forget life’s tragedies.

What a genius, that Picasso. It is a pity he doesn’t paint.

Neither Imperial Russia, nor the Russia of the Soviets needs me. They don’t understand me. I am a stranger to them. I’m certain Rembrandt loves me.

When I am finishing a picture, I hold some God-made object up to it – a rock, a flower, the branch of a tree or my hand – as a final test. If the painting stands up beside a thing man cannot make, the painting is authentic. If there’s a clash between the two, it’s bad art.

In our life there is a single color, as on an artist’s palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love.