“Here I am, because of the People of Paris [ Paris Commune ], up to my neck in politics. President of the Federation of Artists, member of the Commune committee, city council delegate and delegate for Public Education: the four most important posts in Paris. I get up, I have breakfast, and I preside and sit on committees twelve hours a day. Now my head is starting to spin. But in spite of all this worry and trying to understand unfamiliar things, I am really happy..”

— Gustave Courbet

Quote from a letter to his parents (30th April 1870); as cited in 'Courbet Speaks', 'Courbet-dossier', Musée-dOrsay http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/courbet-dossier/courbet-speaks.html
1870s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Here I am, because of the People of Paris [ Paris Commune ], up to my neck in politics. President of the Federation of …" by Gustave Courbet?

Gustave Courbet 30

French painter 1819–1877

Related quotes

“I am working in Paris. I cannot for a single day get the thought out of my head that there probably exists something essential, some immutable reality, and now that I have lost everything else (thank God, it gets lost all on its own) I am trying to preserve this and, what is more, not to be content. In a word: I am working.”

Marc Chagall (1887–1985) French artist and painter

Quote in Chagall's letter to A. N. Benois, 1911, as cited in Marc Chagall - the Russian years 1906 – 1922, editor Christoph Vitali, exhibition catalogue, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 1991, p. 146
1910's

“I don't know anyone who is more admired and respected in the international community than President Karzai, for his strength, for his wisdom and for his courage to lead this country, first in defeat of the Taliban and now a democratic and unified Afghanistan. And I can tell you I am with foreign ministers and with heads of state all over the world. I sit in the councils of NATO. I sit with the EU. I sit with people all over the world and there is great admiration for your president and also for what the Afghan people are doing here.”

Condoleezza Rice (1954) American Republican politician; U.S. Secretary of State; political scientist

Condoleezza Rice, June 28, 2006 http://web.archive.org/web/20060630154056/http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/68396.htm

“I sit here all day trying to persuade people to do the things they ought to have sense enough to do without my persuading them … that's all the powers of the President amount to.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Quoted by Richard Neustadt in Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership http://books.google.com/books?id=-rxEAAAAIAAJ&q="I+sit+here+all+day+trying+to+persuade+people+to+do+the+things+they+ought+to+have+sense+enough+to+do+without+my+persuading+them"+"that's+all+the+powers+of+the+President+amount+to" (1964)

“The Croatian parliament elected me to be the Croatian member of the Presidency of Yugoslavia. I went to Belgrade, where first, for several months, I was not allowed to take up my duties because the Federal Assembly was unable to meet. After that, the Serbian bloc boycotted my election as president under… Finally, under pressure from the international community, I was elected president. Croatia adopted a decision on its independence. Croatia, in agreement with the international community, postponed its secession from Yugoslavia by three months. This time period had elapsed. Yugoslavia no longer existed. The federal institutions were no longer functioning. I returned to Zagreb, and that's precisely what I said. Because I [had not gone] to Belgrade to open up a house-painting business. I went there as a member of the Presidency of Yugoslavia. Since Yugoslavia no longer existed and the Presidency no longer existed, I had performed the tasks entrusted to me by the Croatian parliament and was reporting back, ready to take up a different office. What was I to do in Belgrade when the Presidency no longer existed?… The accused is a lawyer. He understands very well what I'm talking about. My 'task' was to represent Croatia in the Federal Presidency.”

Stjepan Mesić (1934) Former Croatian and Yugoslav president

ICTY Transcript, Page 10636 - Mesić's cross-examination by Slobodan Milošević at the ICTY on 2 October 2002, 8 April 2012 http://www.icty.org/x/cases/slobodan_milosevic/trans/en/021002IT.htm, Responding to an earlier quote in which he stated My task has come to an end. There is no more Yugoslavia. ("Moj posao je završen - Jugoslavije više nema") 5 December 1991 in the Croatian parliament having left the presidency of the Yugoslav presidency.

“One is too taken up with all that one sees and hears in Paris, however strong one is, and what I do here will at least have the merit of being unlike anyone else, at least I believe so, because it will simply be the expression of what I, and only I have felt. The further I get, the more I regret how little I know, that's what hinders me the most... I don't think I will spend much time in Paris now, a month at the very most, each year.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

in a letter to Frédéric Bazille; as quoted in: K.E. Sullivan. Monet: Discovering Art, Brockhampton press, London (2004), p. 31.
1850 - 1870

“Dear Mr. Rosenberg [art-dealer in Paris, then], - Many thanks for your good letters which are a great encouragement to me. I assure you that you are the man who has encouraged me the most so far. Please excuse the tone of declaration. I will also show my gratitude when I am in Paris by doing a good life-size portrait of you, or of a member of your family if you prefer, and I would like you to accept it as a gift. I intend to be in Paris around 15 November. My mother and my brother send their best wishes.”

Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) Italian artist

Mr. Rosenberg, please accept my devotion, esteem and gratitude.
Quote from De Chirico's letter to Mr. Rosenberg, Rome, 13 Oct. 1925; from LETTERS BY GIORGIO DE CHIRICO TO LÉONCE ROSENBERG, 1925-1939 http://www.fondazionedechirico.org/wp-content/uploads/309-338-Rosenberg_Metaphysical_Art_ENG.pdf, p. 317
1920s and later

“I call myself a citizen artist, because one of the things I do is try to get my playwrights — especially my graduate playwrights — interested in the world. It’s about how you connect art to culture and community here and now, and how we are vital to the expression of our community...”

Luis Alfaro (1963) Chicano performance artist, writer, theater director, and social activist

On calling himself a “citizen artist” in “The Artist as Leader: Luis Alfaro” https://www.uncsa.edu/kenan/artist-as-leader/luis-alfaro.aspx (Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts)

“.. because I live in Paris, but just outside Paris at the start of Yonne, I have a barn, a very, very big barn.... right near Auxerre, a barn forty meters long, six meters wide and fifteen meters high, and I do all my work there.. it's like a large street, you know.”

Karel Appel (1921–2006) Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet

describing the location outside Paris, where he makes his large relief compositions
Karel Appel defines his painting', interview 1968

“I have a glove into which I can put your whole city of Paris.”

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558) Holy Roman Emperor

Context: Allegedly told to Francis I of France. The glove, gant in French, is a reference to the city of Ghent (Gandes in French), where Charles was born.

“I have a friend, he's a very, very substantial guy. He loves the city of lights, he loves Paris. For years, every year during the summer, he would go to Paris, was automatic with his wife and his family. Hadn't seen him in a while and I said, Jim, let me ask you a question, how's Paris doing? "Paris? I don't go there anymore, Paris is no longer Paris."”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Trump speaking at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference http://time.com/4682023/cpac-donald-trump-speech-transcript/ (24 February 2017)
2010s, 2017, February

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Gustave Courbet 30

Related quotes

Related topics