“At an exhibition in London, one sagacious critic wrote: 'Monsieur Degas seems a good pupil of Nittis!' Doesn't this reflect that mania which men of letters have for squabbling in court over who had a given idea first? And the mania spreads to painters who take great care of their originality.”
Source: 1890s - 1910s, The Writings of a Savage (1996), p. 219: quote in 1898
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Paul Gauguin 41
French Post-Impressionist artist 1848–1903Related quotes

Letter to his wife, quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), p. 354.
1860s

"The Crime and the Punishment" (p. 46)
posthumous quotes, Degas: An Intimate Portrait' (1927)

"The Root of All Evil" as translated by Michael Hamburger

"The Crime and the Punishment" (p. 47)
posthumous quotes, Degas: An Intimate Portrait' (1927)

Preface to Volume 1
Letters That Have Helped Me (1891)

Address on sentencing (1885)
Context: The Court. has done the work for me, and although at first appearance it seems to be against me, I am so confident in the idea which I have had the honor to express yesterday, that I think it is for good and not for my loss. Up to this moment, I have been considered by a certain party as insane, by another party as a criminal, by another party as a man with whom it was doubtful whether to have any intercourse. So there was hostility and there was contempt, and there was avoidance To-day, by the verdict of the Court, one of these three situations has disappeared.
I suppose that after having been condemned, I will cease to be called a fool, and for me it is a great advantage. I consider it as a great advantage. If I have a mission, I say "If " for the sake of those who doubt, but for my part it means "Since," since I have a mission, I cannot fulfil my mission as long as I am looked upon as an insane being-human being, at the moment that I begin to ascend that scale, I begin to succeed.

“The idea had spread like wildfire …. like a moral plague, as one critic of the time had put it.”
Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Ch. 7 : The Bleeding Heart
Context: There were organ banks all over the world, inadequately supplied by people kind enough to will their bodies to medical science.
How useful is the body of a man who dies of old age? How fast can you reach a car accident? And in 2043, Arkansas, which had never rescinded the death penalty, made the organ banks the official state method of execution.
The idea had spread like wildfire.... like a moral plague, as one critic of the time had put it.

“A flattering painter, who made it his care
To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.”
Source: Retaliation (1774), Line 63.