Francisco Goya

Visual Arts Spanish 1746 – 1828 104 quotes

A Romantic painter and printmaker, he is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, known for 'The Third of May 1808'.

Quotes by Francisco Goya

The sleep of reason produces monsters.

Los Caprichos, Plate 43 1799

Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters; united with reason, she is the mother of the arts and the source of their wonders.

Los Caprichos, Plate 43 (caption) 1799

I have had to make sacrifices to my art, but I have never sacrificed my art.

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Painting (like poetry) chooses from the universal what is most appropriate to its ends. It brings together in a single imaginary being circumstances and characteristics which occur in nature in different individuals.

Los Caprichos (preface) 1799

The artist is born, not made.

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I see only lines and masses.

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I am not afraid of witches, goblins, or ghosts, nor of any kind of monster, except those which are born of human reason.

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There are no rules in painting, and all the rules are good.

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The true artist is one who paints what he sees, not what he is told to see.

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I have always been a lover of truth.

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The public is always right, but it is also always wrong.

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One must be mad to paint, but one must be a genius to be mad.

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I have seen enough of the world to know that it is a place of suffering.

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The artist's eye is a mirror of the soul.

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I am a man who has seen much, and who has much to say.

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The brush is my weapon.

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I do not paint to be understood, but to be felt.

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The world is a carnival of horrors.

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To paint is to suffer.

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The greatest art is that which is most human.

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