First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
Latest Quote Added
"Before my encounter with Thomist philosophy through Maritain, I had almost reached the same conclusions through the logical development of my work, intuition and thought, but what a great sense of joy I felt upon discovering, in Maritain, the confirmation of certain thought patterns, certain ways of clarifying these to myself and to others."
"..[a] generous display of scantily clad beauties and a carnavalesque inventiveness.. ..[the] beautifully masked and under-dressed women, with showers of confetti, multicolored streamers. The atmosphere was one of frenzy.."
"I was interested in achieving a creative freedom, a style that I could express with Seurat's.. ..color technique [color-divisionism], but shaped to my own needs. Proof that I found it is in my paintings of that period, among which is the famous 'Pan-Pan a Monico' [Severini painted in 1912]. My preference for Neo-Impressionism dates from those works. At times I tried to suppress it, but it always worked its way back to the surface."
"[Severini characterized his approach to the importance of Divisionism for Futurism as] ..a consequence of Neo-Impressionism (Seurat, Signac) and Van Gogh, Toulouse Lautrec, Degas.. [compared to that of his Milanese colleagues who works were] influenced by Jugendstil [and] a continuation of the Lombardian tradition of Segantini, Previati.."
"..it was Seurat who first and most successfully established a balance between subject, composition and technique .. ..the modern world that Seurat wished to paint.. .I understood his importance as soon as I arrived in Paris [1906].. .I chose Seurat as my master for once and for all."
"Philosophers and aestheticians may offer elegant and profound definitions of art and beauty, but for the painter they are all summed up in this phrase: To create a harmony"
"Art is nothing but humanized science."
"It was during the first years [1906-1910] that we [the Futurist artists] realized the presence of a dualism deep down within us, where another person, whom we ourselves do not know, tends, at the moment of the creative act, to supplant the person we believe ourselves to be and would like to be. It is difficult to bring these two individualities into accord, yet it is upon this accord that the development of a personality largely depends. My first contact with the art of Seurat whom I adopted, once and for all, as my master, did a great deal to help me to express myself in terms of the two simultaneous and often opposed aspirations. This opposition caused me much mental torture, I must admit.."
"In our young days, when Modigliani and I first came to Paris, in 1906, nobody was very clear about ideas. But unconsciously, we knew quite a lot of things, of which we became aware later on."
"..ambition to surpass Impressionism, destroying the subject's unity of time and place.. ..[to render its relations to] things that apparently had nothing to do with it, but that in reality were linked to it in my imagination, in my memories or by feeling. In the same canvas I brought together the Arc of Triumph, the Tour Eiffel, the Alps, the head of my father, an autobus, the municipal hall of Pienza, the boulevard..."
"I found in your book the confirmation of my ultimate conclusions and the tools for deepening this aspect of the artistic problem."
"The truth lies somewhere between these two aesthetics [static Cubism and dynamic Futurism]. The 'pure form' of w:Ingres led inevitably to a life-less Platonism; the lyricism and Romanticism of Eugène Delacroix no longer tailed with our cerebral and geometric age.. ..as in all great ages, today's artwork must be the synthesis of these two things [quote, 1917]."
"this complex form of realism.. ..totally destroys the integrity of the subject-matter.. .The abstract colors and forms that we portray belong to Universe outside time and space."
"The men can go away, the executives can go away, but what is really though in this society are the players who has been handed down the feel of winning, of being the absolute best, which isn't equal to any other team."
"Speaking of Buffon, I am very surprised that at his age he continues to play without ever failing. It is an example to be inspired by."
"In recent times Italy have been in a World Cup final every 12 years and I hope to still be there in 2018."
"My worst vice is gluttony. I try to keep myself under control because I’m an athlete, but once a week I like to pig out and act like a normal person."
"If you are what you ought to be, you will set fire to all Italy, and not only yonder. (Letter 368 to Stefano Maconi)"
"The path to heaven lies through heaven, and all the way to heaven is heaven."
"Catherine of Siena was only six years old when Jesus appeared to her dressed majestically as the Supreme Pontiff, with three crowns on his head and a red cloak, flanked by St. Peter, St. John, and St. Paul. She devoted herself to serving the Church and, in particular, the clergy and the Pope."
"I am a free man, I do not need to copy Petrarch or Boccaccio. My own genius is enough. Let others worry themselves about style and so cease to be themselves. Without a master, without a model, without a guide, without artifice, I go to work and earn my living, my well-being, and my fame. What do I need more? With a goose quill and a few sheets of paper I mock the universe."
"Yes, let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius."
"I love you and, because I love you, I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies."
"What evil is there in seeing a man possess a woman? Why, the beasts would be more free than we! It seems to me that that which is given us by nature for our own preservation ought to be worn round the neck as a pendant and in the hat for a medal."