Henry Moore

“All art is an abstraction to some degree.”

“To be an artist is to believe in life.”

“The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is, it must be something you cannot possibly do.”

“Sculpture is an art of the open air. Daylight, sunlight, is necessary to it, and for me its best setting and complement is nature.”

“I think in terms of the day's resolutions, not the years'.”

“A sculptor is a person who is interested in the shape of things.”

“The whole of nature is an endless demonstration of shape and form.”

“There's no retirement for an artist, it's your way of living so there's no end to it.”

“The observation of nature is part of an artist's life.”

“A work can have in it a pent-up energy, an intense life of its own, independent of the object it may represent.”

“One never knows what each day is going to bring. The important thing is to be open and ready for it.”

“I would rather have a drawing or a sculpture that is almost a complete failure, but has a hint of a new direction.”

“Art is the expression of the imagination, not the imitation of life.”

“The human figure is the most difficult and the most interesting.”

“The sensitive observer of sculpture must learn to feel form, not just to look at it.”

“The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.”

“Sculpture should always at first sight have some obscurities, and be rather mysterious.”

“It is a mistake for a sculptor or a painter to speak or write very often about his job. It releases tension needed for his work.”