“If a symbol should be discovered in a painting of mine, it was not my intention. It is a result I did not seek. It is something that may be found afterwards, and which can be interpreted according to taste.”
In Marc Chagall 1887-1985: Painting As Poetry by Ingo F. Walther, Rainer Metzger, p. 78
after 1930
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Marc Chagall 35
French artist and painter 1887–1985Related quotes
Actually both positions are implicit in the paintings, so you don't have to choose.
The Insiders, Rejection en Rediscovery of Man in the Arts of our Time, Selden Rodman, Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1960, Chapter 6.
1960s

“Only upon the old can build the new;
The symbol which you seek is found in you.”
Life Without and Life Within (1859), The One In All
Context: And dost thou seek to find the one in two?
Only upon the old can build the new;
The symbol which you seek is found in you.
Preface.
A Treatise on Language: Or, The Relation which Words Bear to Things, in Four Parts (1836)
Context: As... the following sheets are the painful elaboration of many years, when my language or positions shall, in a casual perusal, seem absurd, (and such cases may be frequent,) I request the reader to seek some more creditable interpretation. The best which he can conceive should be assumed to be my intention: as on an escutcheon, when a figure resembles both an eagle and a buzzard, heraldry decides that the bird which is most creditable to the bearer, shall be deemed to be the one intended by the blazon.

Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 2, “Probability and Coincidence” (p. 62)

Witold Doroszewski, Elements of lexicology and semiotics. Vol. 46. Mouton, 1973. p. 36-37

E 69
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook E (1775 - 1776)

“I dream my picture and afterwards I paint my dream.”
As translated in Musical Courier Vol. 57, No. 21 (18 November 1908), p. 20; in recent years a nearly identical but ultimately unsourced remark has been attributed to Vincent Van Gogh; the very earliest such attributions yet found date to the 1990s.
As translated in Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning (1918) by Thomas Troward, p. 207
As translated in Gardener's Chronicle of America (1932)
undated
Original: (fr) Je rêve mon tableau, et plus tard je peindrai mon rêve.

“if I did my job right, it should be something everyone can connect with”
Tim White said about California
Source: http://www.myamn.com.au/index.php/international/item/1594-tim-white