“To defend painting: One has to believe in what one is doing, one has to commit oneself inwardly, in order to do painting. Once obsessed, one ultimately carries it to the point of believing that one might change human beings through painting. But if one lacks this passionate commitment, there is nothing left to do. Then it is best to leave it alone. For basically painting is pure idiocy.”

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 20

Quoted in: Ingo F. Walther Art of the 20th Century (2000), p. 264.

On the Way to Work, p. 82, Faber and Faber, 2001.
Most of Hirst's "spot paintings" are executed by assistants.

Player One (2010)

in original language - German: Warum, die Frag' ist oft zu mir ergangen / Wählst du zum Gegenstand der Malerei / So oft den Tod, Vergänglichkeit und Grab? / Um ewig einst zu leben / Muss man sich oft dem Tod ergeben.
Quote c. 1812; from Caspar David Friedrich, William Vaughn; London: Tate Gallery, 1972, p. 16–17
1794 - 1840

Quote from The New Realism goes on, F. Léger, Art Front, February 1937 pp. 7-8
Quotes of Fernand Leger, 1930's

As quoted in Encyclopedia of Artists (2000) by William Vaughan and Christopher Ackroyd, p. 28
1876 - 1883

Source: 1956 - 1967, Art-as-Art Dogma' part II, (1964), p. 157

Quote (Bern, April 1902), as cited in Artists on Art, from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 442
1895 - 1902