Claude Monet, born in 1840, was a pioneering French painter whose work epitomized the Impressionist movement. Renowned for his ability to capture light and color, Monet’s paintings, such as “Water Lilies” and “Impression, Sunrise,” revolutionized the art world. His loose brushwork and emphasis on fleeting moments transformed how people perceived and experienced art. Monet’s fascination with nature led him to paint numerous series exploring the same subjects under different conditions. Despite facing criticism and financial difficulties, he remained dedicated to his artistic vision. Monet’s relentless pursuit of innovation and his ability to evoke emotion through his paintings solidified his legacy as one of the most important artists of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, his works continue to inspire and captivate audiences worldwide, showcasing his enduring influence on the art world.

Claude Monet Quotes

1. “To see we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at.”
— Claude Monet

2. “My life has been nothing but a failure.”
— Claude Monet

3. “Everything changes, even stone.”
— Claude Monet

4. “Every day I discover more and more beautiful things. It’s enough to drive one mad. I have such a desire to do everything, my head is bursting with it.”
— Claude Monet

5. “The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.”
— Claude Monet

6. “Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.”
— Claude Monet

7. “My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.”
— Claude Monet

8. “The light constantly changes, and that alters the atmosphere and beauty of things every minute.”
— Claude Monet

9. “These landscapes of water and reflection have become an obsession.”
— Claude Monet

10. “I would like to paint the way a bird sings.”
— Claude Monet

11. “It’s on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly.”
— Claude Monet

12. “My work is always better when I am alone and follow my own impressions.”
— Claude Monet

13. “A good impression is lost so quickly…”
— Claude Monet

14. “I’m continuing to work hard, not without periods of discouragement, but my strength comes back again.”
— Claude Monet

15. “Light is the most important person in the picture.”
— Claude Monet

16. “Never, even as a child, would I bend to a rule.”
— Claude Monet

17. “Color is my daylong obsession, joy, and torment.”
— Claude Monet

18. “I want the unobtainable. Other artists paint a bridge, a house, a boat, and that’s the end. They are finished. I want to paint the air which surrounds the bridge, the house, the boat, the beauty of the air in which these objects are located, and that is nothing short of impossible.”
— Claude Monet

19. “I never draw except with brush and paint…”
— Claude Monet

20. “I must have flowers, always, and always.”
— Claude Monet

21. “I want to paint the air in which the bridge, the house and the boat are to be found – the beauty of the air around them, and that is nothing less than the impossible.”
— Claude Monet

22. “Water Lilies’ is an extension of my life. Without the woter the lilies cannot live, as I am without art.”
— Claude Monet

23. “It took me time to understand my water lilies. I had planted them for the pleasure of it; I grew them without ever thinking of painting them.”
— Claude Monet

24. “The real subject of every painting is light.”
— Claude Monet

25. “All I did was to look at what the universe showed me, to let my brush bear witness to it.”
— Claude Monet

26. “I had so much fire in me and so many plans…”
— Claude Monet

27. “What keeps my heart awake is colorful silence.”
— Claude Monet

28. “Nature won’t be summoned to order and won’t be kept waiting. It must be caught, well caught.”
— Claude Monet

29. “The older I become the more I realize of that I have to work very hard to reproduce what I search: the instantaneous. The influence of the atmosphere on the things and the light scattered throughout.”
— Claude Monet

30. “Zaandam has enough to paint for a lifetime.”
— Claude Monet

31. “I am good at only two things, and those are gardening and painting.”
— Claude Monet

32. “I would advise young artists to paint as they can, as long as they can, without being afraid of painting badly.”
— Claude Monet

33. “I am very depressed and deeply disgusted with painting. It is really a continual torture.”
— Claude Monet

34. “I haven’t yet managed to capture the colour of this landscape; there are moments when I’m appalled at the colours I’m having to use, I’m afraid what I’m doing is just dreadful and yet I really am understating it; the light is simply terrifying.”
— Claude Monet

35. “I’m in fine fettle and fired with a desire to paint.”
— Claude Monet

36. “I didn’t become an impressionist. As long as I can remember I always have been one.”
— Claude Monet

37. “Nothing in the whole world is of interest to me but my painting and my flowers.”
— Claude Monet

38. “Take clear water with grass waving at the bottom. It’s wonderful to look at, but to try to paint it is enough to make one insane.”
— Claude Monet

39. “I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.”
— Claude Monet

40. “I waited for the idea to consolidate, for the grouping and composition of themes to settle themselves in my brain.”
— Claude Monet

41. “I sometimes feel ashamed that I am devoting myself to artistic pursuits while so many of our people are suffering and dying for us. It’s true that fretting never did any good.”
— Claude Monet

42. “Now I really feel the landscape, I can be bold and include every tone of blue and pink: it’s enchanting, it’s delicious.”
— Claude Monet

43. “Apart from painting and gardening, I’m not good at anything.”
— Claude Monet

44. “My only desire is an intimate infusion with nature, and the only fate I wish is to have worked and lived in harmony with her laws.”
— Claude Monet

45. “I haven’t many years left ahead of me and I must devote all my time to painting, in the hope of achieving something worthwhile in the end, something if possible that will satisfy me.”
— Claude Monet

46. “I’m enjoying the most perfect tranquillity, free from all worries, and in consequence would like to stay this way forever, in a peaceful corner of the countryside like this.”
— Claude Monet

47. “No, I’m not a great painter. Neither am I a great poet.”
— Claude Monet

48. “I intend to do a large painting of the cliff at Etretat, although it is terribly bold of me to do so after Courbet has painted it so admirably, but I will try to do it in a different way…”
— Claude Monet

49. “One day Boudin said to me, ‘Learn to draw well and appreciate the sea, the light, the blue sky.’ I took his advice.”
— Claude Monet

50. “It’s enough to drive you crazy, trying to depict the weather, the atmosphere, the ambience.”
— Claude Monet

51. “Colors pursue me like a constant worry. They even worry me in my sleep.”
— Claude Monet

52. “Techniques vary, art stays the same; it is a transposition of nature at once forceful and sensitive.”
— Claude Monet

53. “My eyes were finally opened and I understood nature. I learned at the same time to love it.”
— Claude Monet

54. “For me, the subject is of secondary importance: I want to convey what is alive between me and the subject.”
— Claude Monet

55. “I’m knocked out, I’ve never felt so physically and mentally exhausted, I’m quite stupid with it and long only for bed; but I am happy…”
— Claude Monet

56. “It is better to have done something than to have been someone.”
— Claude Monet

57. “These landscapes of water and reflections have become an obsession. It’s quite beyond my powers at my age, and yet I want to succeed in expressing what I feel.”
— Claude Monet

58. “I’m never finished with my paintings; the further I get, the more I seek the impossible and the more powerless I feel.”
— Claude Monet

59. “It’s the hardest thing to be alone in being satisfied with what one’s done.”
— Claude Monet

60. “I work at my garden all the time and with love. What I need most are flowers, always. My heart is forever in Giverny.”
— Claude Monet

61. “One’s better off alone, and yet there are so many things that are impossible to fathom on one’s own. In fact it’s a terrible business and the task is a hard one.”
— Claude Monet

62. “No one but myself knows the anxiety I go through and the trouble I give myself to finish paintings which do not satisfy me and seem to please so very few others.”
— Claude Monet

63. “No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition.”
— Claude Monet

64. “I know that to paint the sea really well, you need to look at it every hour of every day in the same place so that you can understand its way in that particular spot; and that is why I am working on the same motifs over and over again, four or six times even.”
— Claude Monet

65. “It is only too easy to catch people’s attention by doing something worse than anyone else has dared to do it before.”
— Claude Monet

66. “You’ll understand, I’m sure that I’m chasing the merest sliver of color. It’s my own fault. I want to grasp the intangible. It’s terrible how the light runs out. Color, any color, lasts a second, sometimes 3 or 4 minutes at most…”
— Claude Monet

67. “All of a sudden I had the revelation of how enchanting my pond was.”
— Claude Monet

68. “For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at any moment.”
— Claude Monet

69. “I do what I can to convey what I experience before nature and most often, in order to succeed in conveying what I feel, I totally forget the most elementary rules of painting, if they exist that is.”
— Claude Monet

70. “It is a tragedy that we live in a world where physical courage is so common, and moral courage is so rare.”
— Claude Monet

71. “Gardening was something I learned in my youth when I was unhappy. I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.”
— Claude Monet

72. “I’m not performing miracles, I’m using up and wasting a lot of paint…”
— Claude Monet

73. “Listening only to my instincts, I discovered superb things.”
— Claude Monet

74. “I let a good many mistakes show through when fixing my sensations. It will always be the same and this is what makes me despair.”
— Claude Monet

75. “One day I am satisfied, the next day I find it all bad; still I hope that some day I will find some of them good.”
— Claude Monet

76. “The point is to know how to use the colours, the choice of which is, when all’s said and done, a matter of habit.”
— Claude Monet

77. “The only merit I have is to have painted directly from nature with the aim of conveying my impressions in front of the most fugitive effects.”
— Claude Monet

78. “For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life – the light and the air which vary continually. For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value.”
— Claude Monet

79. “Paint what you really see, not what you think you ought to see; not the object isolated as in a test tube, but the object enveloped in sunlight and atmosphere, with the blue dome of Heaven reflected in the shadows.”
— Claude Monet

80. “Now, more than ever, I realize just how illusory my undeserved success has been. I still hold out some hope of doing better, but age and unhappiness have sapped my strength.”
— Claude Monet

81. “While adding the finishing touches to a painting might appear insignificant, it is much harder to do than one might suppose…”
— Claude Monet

82. “The Thames was all gold. God it was beautiful, so fine that I began working a frenzy, following the sun and its reflections on the water.”
— Claude Monet

83. “If the world really looks like that I will paint no more!”
— Claude Monet

84. “I can only draw what I see.”
— Claude Monet

85. “When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you, a tree, a house, a field or whatever. Merely think here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape.”
— Claude Monet

86. “If only the weather would improve, there’d be hope of some work, but every day brings rain.”
— Claude Monet

87. “I would love to do orange and lemon trees silhouetted against the blue sea, but I cannot find them the way I want them.”
— Claude Monet

88. “When it is dark, it seems to me as if I were dying, and I can’t think any more.”
— Claude Monet

89. “It really is appallingly difficult to do something which is complete in every respect, and I think most people are content with mere approximations. Well, my dear friend, I intend to battle on, scrape off and start again…”
— Claude Monet

90. “What is it that’s taken hold of me, for me to carry on like this in relentless pursuit of something beyond my powers?”
— Claude Monet

91. “Getting up at 4 in the morning, I slave away all day until by the evening I’m exhausted, and I end by forgetting all my responsibilities, thinking only of the work I’ve set out to do.”
— Claude Monet

92. “Work is nearly always a torture. If I could find something else I would be much happier, because I could use this other interest as a form of relaxation. Now I cannot relax.”
— Claude Monet

93. “I’m very happy, very delighted. I’m setting to like a fighting cockerel, for I’m surrounded here by all that I love.”
— Claude Monet

94. “The effect of sincerity is to give one’s work the character of a protest. The painter, being concerned only with conveying his impression, simply seeks to be himself and no one else.”
— Claude Monet

95. “Despite my exhaustion I have a devil of a time getting to sleep because of the rats above my bed and a pig who lives beneath my room…”
— Claude Monet

96. “I despise the opinion of the press and the so-called critics.”
— Claude Monet

97. “I say that whoever claims to have finished a canvas is terribly arrogant.”
— Claude Monet

98. “I get madder and madder on giving back what I feel.”
— Claude Monet

99. “I know well enough in advance that you’ll find my paintings perfect. I know that if they are exhibited they’ll be a great success, but I couldn’t be more indifferent to it since I know they are bad, I’m certain of it.”
— Claude Monet

100. “Most people think I paint fast. I paint very slowly.”
— Claude Monet

101. “The creditors are proving impossible to deal with and short of a sudden appearance on the scene of wealthy art patrons, we are going to be turned out of this dear little house where I led a simple life and was able to work so well. I do not know what will become of us…”
— Claude Monet

102. “The essence of the motif is the mirror of water, whose appearance alters at every moment.”
— Claude Monet

103. “When I look at nature I feel as if I’ll be able to paint it all, note it all down, and then you might as well forget it once you’re working…”
— Claude Monet

104. “It is difficult to stop in time because one gets carried away. But I have that strength; it is the only strength I have.”
— Claude Monet

105. “I don’t think I’m made for any earthly kind of pleasure.”
— Claude Monet

106. “I’m not lacking for enthusiasm as you can see, given that I have something like 65 canvases covered with paint and I’ll be needing more since the place is quite out of the ordinary; so I’m going to order some more canvases…”
— Claude Monet

107. “I’m quite content: although what I’m doing is far from being as I should like, I am complemented often enough all the same…”
— Claude Monet

108. “I will bring lots of studies back with me so I can work on some big things at home.”
— Claude Monet

109. “I’ve spent so long on some paintings that I no longer know what to think of them, and I am definitely getting harder to please; nothing satisfies me…”
— Claude Monet

110. “What can be said about a man who is interested in nothing but his painting? It’s a pity if a man can only interest himself in one thing. But I can’t do any thing else. I have only one interest.”
— Claude Monet

111. “I can no longer work outside because of the intensity of the light.”
— Claude Monet

112. “I’ve always refused requests even from friends to employ a technique I know nothing about.”
— Claude Monet

113. “Lots of people will protest that it’s quite unreal and that I’m out of my mind, but that’s just too bad.”
— Claude Monet

114. “My heart is forever in Giverny.”
— Claude Monet

115. “As for myself, I met with as much success as I ever could have wanted. In other words, I was enthusiastically run-down by every critic of the period.”
— Claude Monet

116. “When I work I forget all the rest.”
— Claude Monet

117. “I’m going to get down to a still life on a size 50 canvas of rayfish and dogfish with old fishermen’s baskets. Then I’m going to turn out a few pictures to send wherever possible, given that now, first and foremost – unfortunately – I have to earn some money.”
— Claude Monet

118. “One can do something if one can see and understand it…”
— Claude Monet

119. “To have gone to all this trouble to get to this is just too stupid! Outside there’s brilliant sunshine but I don’t feel up to looking at it…”
— Claude Monet

120. “I’m working hard with more determination than ever. My success at the Salon led to my selling several paintings and since your absence I have made 800 francs; I hope, when I have contracts with more dealers, it will be better still.”
— Claude Monet

121. “By the single example of this painter devoted to his art with such independence, my destiny as a painter opened out to me.”
— Claude Monet

122. “I have once more taken up things that can’t be done: water with grasses weaving on the bottom. But I’m always tackling that sort of thing!”
— Claude Monet

123. “Think of me getting up before 6, I’m at work by 7 and I continue until 6.30 in the evening, standing up all the time, nine canvases. It’s murderous…”
— Claude Monet

124. “I am enslaved to my work, always wanting the impossible, and never, I believe, have I been less favoured by the endlessly changeable weather.”
— Claude Monet

125. “It seems to me that when I see nature I see it ready-made, completely written – but then, try to do it!”
— Claude Monet

126. “It would be asking too much to want to sell only to connoisseurs – that way starvation lies.”
— Claude Monet

127. “Despite my extremely modest prices, dealers and art lovers are turning their backs on me. It is very depressing to see the lack of interest shown in an art object which has no market value.”
— Claude Monet

128. “For almost two months now I’ve been struggling away with no result.”
— Claude Monet

129. “I still have a lot of pleasure doing them, but as time goes by I come to appreciate more clearly which paintings are good and which should be discarded.”
— Claude Monet

130. “I’ve said it before and can only repeat that I owe everything to Boudin and I attribute my success to him. I came to be fascinated by his studies, the products of what I call instantaneity.”
— Claude Monet

131. “I have made tremendous efforts to work in a darker register and express the sinister and tragic quality of the place, given my natural tendency to work in light and pale tones.”
— Claude Monet

132. “I still don’t know where I am going to sleep tomorrow.”
— Claude Monet

133. “You might perhaps like to see the few canvases I was able to save from the bailiffs and the rest, since I thought you might be so good as to help me a little, as I am in quite a desperate state, and the worst is that I can no longer even work.”
— Claude Monet

134. “Thanks to my work everything’s going well; it’s a great consolation.”
— Claude Monet

135. “I think only of my painting, and if I were to drop it, I think I’d go crazy.”
— Claude Monet

136. “I’ve only myself to blame for it, my impotence most of all and my weakness. If I do any good work now it will be only by chance.”
— Claude Monet

137. “I’ve done what I could as a painter and that seems to me to be sufficient. I don’t want to be compared to the great masters of the past, and my painting is open to criticism; that’s enough.”
— Claude Monet

138. “I am installed in a fairylike place. I do not know where to poke my head; everything is superb, and I would like to do everything, so I use up and squander lots of color, for there are trials to be made.”
— Claude Monet

139. “I must have flowers, always, and always.”
― Claude Monet

140. “Color is my daylong obsession, joy, and torment.”
― Claude Monet

141. “Every day I discover
more and more
beautiful things.
It’s enough to drive one mad.
I have such a desire
to do everything,
my head is bursting with it.”
― Claude Monet

142. “Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.”
― Claude Monet

143. “I would like to paint the way a bird sings.”
― Claude Monet

144. “My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece”
― Claude Monet

145. “What keeps my heart awake is colorful silence.”
― Claude Monet

146. “the more I live, the more I regret how little i know”
― Claude monet

147. “It’s on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly.”
― Claude Monet

148. “I’m not performing miracles, I’m using up and wasting a lot of paint…”
― Claude Monet

149. “Everyday I discover more and more beautiful things. It’s enough to drive one mad. I have such a desire to do everything, my head is bursting with it.”
― Claude Monet

150. “The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration. ”
― Claude Monet

151. “I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.”
― Claude Monet

152. “I don’t think I’m made for any earthly kind of pleasure.”
― Claude Monet

153. “No one but myself knows the anxiety I go through and the trouble I give myself…”
― Claude Monet

154. “I can only draw what I see.”
― Claude Monet

155. “When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you, a tree, a house, a field or whatever. Merely think here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape.”
― Claude Monet

156. “…Every day I discover even more beautiful things. It is intoxicating me, and I want to paint it all – my head is bursting…”
― Claude Monet

157. “If the world really looks like that I will paint no more!”
― Claude Monet

158. “I want to paint the way a bird sings.”
― Claude Monet

159. “For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life – the light and the air which vary continually. For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value.”
― Claude Monet

160. “Impression — I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it … and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape.”
― Claude Monet

161. “The further I get, the more I regret how little I know…”
― Claude Monet

162. “I get madder and madder on giving back what I feel.”
― Claude Monet

163. “Water Lilies’ is an extension of my life. Without the woter the lilies cannot live, as I am without art.”
― Claude Monet

164. “I must have flowers. Always and always.”
― Claude Monet

165. “I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers”
― Claude Monet

166. “The light constantly changes, and that alters the atmosphere and beauty of things every minute.”
― Claude Monet

167. “The essence of the motif is the mirror of water, whose appearance alters at every moment.”
― Claude Monet

168. “I must have flowers, always and always.”
― Claude Monet