NOTABLE QUOTES BY MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF

(Back to book page: Portrait of Young Genius – The Mind and Art of Marie Bashkirtseff )

I am the most interesting book of all.

To die! My God, to die! To die without leaving anything behind me? To die like a dog, like hundreds of thousands of women whose names are barely engraved upon their tombs?

Let us love dogs; let us love only dogs. Men and cats are unworthy creatures.

A man is selfish, he wanders wherever he likes, and then he takes a whole woman and wants her to be satisfied with his scraps, to love his worn out carcass, his bitter character, his tired face.

Gluttony is a monstrosity in a woman, but a little indulgence in eating is as necessary as with, flirting, and good dressing.

What am I? Nothing. What do I want? Everything.

True artists cannot be happy.

Love accomplishes the miracle of mixing souls.

If God exists, He is like me. He doesn’t hear anything.

If I had been a man, I would have conquered Europe. As a girl, I wasted my life in verbal excess and inane eccentricities.

My relatives haven’t committed any crime except to be born stupid!

To live is to love – to love is to live.

God I believe in you but your priests are imbeciles.

All men are scoundrels; a woman must change them as she changes her gloves.

A wife before marriage is Pompeii before the eruption; a wife after marriage is Pompeii after the eruption.

I am more changeable than the weather: beautiful in the morning, stormy in the afternoon, showers and clearing in the evening.

If I were a Goddess with the whole universe to serve me, I should find that I was ill served.

Men have 36 chances; women have only one, the zero.

If I don’t work, I have only to die.

I hide a mystery; death has touched me with its finger.

Why would a woman profane her marriage by showing herself in curlers and robe, with cold cream on her nose, trying to get money from her husband for dresses?

Women’s society is indispensable like bread for a well-placed woman.

God is Nature, the Universe, but not a supreme Being who watches over us, who hears us.

Back to book page: Portrait of Young Genius – The Mind and Art of Marie Bashkirtseff