Theophile Gautier Art Quotations

What well-bred woman would refuse her heart to a man who had just saved her life? Not one; and gratitude is a short cut which speedily leads to love.

Whatever may have been said of the satiety of pleasure and of the disgust which usually follows passion, any man who has anything of a heart and who is not wretchedly and hopelessly blasé feels his love increased by his happiness, and very often the best way to retain a lover ready to leave is to give one's self up to him without reserve.

High art alone is eternal and the bust outlives the city.

Any man who does not have his inner world to translate is not an artist.

Art is beauty, the perpetual invention of detail, the choice of words, the exquisite care of execution.

To extract beauty from one's own milieu is one of the most difficult tasks of art.

Yes I have loved, as no one on earth ever loved, with an insensate and furious love, so violent that I wonder it did not break my heart

The purity of a person's heart can be quickly measured by how they regard animals

The arts teach and moralise by their beauty alone, not by translating a philosophical or social formula. For the truly artistic person, painting has itself as it's purpose, which is quite enough.

[Great artists] do not copy what they see, but what they desire.

To love is to admire with the heart; to admire is to love with the mind.