Gustav Klimt

I want to get as many people as possible to fall in love, really in love with my work.

There is nothing more artistic than to love people.

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.

By nature I am no dilettante or amateur; I am an artist through and through.

Even when I'm old and grey, I won't be able to look back on my life and say, 'That was a good life.'

The work of art is a confession.

I don't paint women; I paint the idea of woman.

Happiness is equilibrium. Work is one of the best forms of equilibrium.

The older I get, the more I see the beauty in imperfection.

I am a painter who doesn't paint.

Love is the only serious thing in the world, and it is the only thing in the world that is not absurd.

In art, as in love, instinct is enough.

The soul is healed by being with children.

I seek to express the highest and fullest feeling of which I am capable.

Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

The artist must be a philosopher.

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.

I am less interested in myself as a subject for painting than I am in other people, above all women.

The only lasting beauty is the beauty of the heart.

Art is the most intense mode of individualism.