“Let them scoff as they see fit! I will never compromise what I consider my art, especially for the sake of gain!”

“For the sake of all beings I have made this body pleasureless. Let them continually beat it, revile it, and cover it with filth. Let them play with my body. Let them laugh at it and ridicule it. What does it matter to me? I have given my body to them.”

“Art for the sake of art itself is an idle sentence. Art for the sake of truth, for the sake of what is beautiful and good — that is the creed I seek.”

“It's not art for art's sake, it's art for my sake.”

“I keep my hands empty for the sake of what I have had in them.”

“They envy the distinction I have won; let them, therefore, envy my toils, my honesty, and the methods by which I gained it.”

“I look at things for the art sake and the beauty sake and for the deal sake.”

“You may lose something, but you gain a double perspective, a double vision. Especially in terms of writing, or in terms of art, I think it's tremendously useful.”

“Works of art, in my opinion, are the only objects in the material universe to possess internal order, and that is why, though I don't believe that only art matters, I do believe in Art for Art's sake.”

“I obey nature, I never presume to command her. The first principal in art is to copy what one sees.”