Quotes by Paul Klee

A single day is enough to make us a little larger or, another time, a little smaller.
– Paul Klee
Beauty is as relative as light and dark. Thus, there exists no beautiful woman, none at all, because you are never certain that a still far more beautiful woman will not appear and completely shame the supposed beauty of the first.
– Paul Klee
Children also have artistic ability, and there is wisdom in there having it! The more helpless they are, the more instructive are the examples they furnish us; and they must be preserved free of corruption from an early age.
– Paul Klee
Color possesses me. I don't have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour: Color and I are one. I am a painter.
– Paul Klee
Democracy with its semi-civilization sincerely cherishes junk. The artist's power should be spiritual. But the power of the majority is material. When these worlds meet occasionally, it is pure coincidence.
– Paul Klee
Everything vanishes around me, and works are born as if out of the void. Ripe, graphic fruits fall off. My hand has become the obedient instrument of a remote will.
– Paul Klee
He has found his style, when he cannot do otherwise.
– Paul Klee
In the final analysis, a drawing simply is no longer a drawing, no matter how self-sufficient its execution may be. It is a symbol, and the more profoundly the imaginary lines of projection meet higher dimensions, the better.
– Paul Klee
Nature is garrulous to the point of confusion, let the artist be truly taciturn.
– Paul Klee
One does not lash hat lies at a distance. The foibles that we ridicule must at least be a little bit our own. Only then will the work be a part of our own flesh. The garden must be weeded.
– Paul Klee
One eye sees, the other feels.
– Paul Klee
Satire must not be a kind of superfluous ill will, but ill will from a higher point of view. Ridiculous man, divine God. Or else, hatred against the bogged-down vileness of average man as against the possible heights that humanity might attain.
– Paul Klee
Some will not recognize the truthfulness of my mirror. Let them remember that I am not here to reflect the surface... but must penetrate inside. My mirror probes down to the heart. I write words on the forehead and around the corners of the mouth. My human faces are truer than the real ones.
– Paul Klee
The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression, whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions.
– Paul Klee
The worst state of affairs is when science begins to concern itself with art.
– Paul Klee
To emphasize only the beautiful seems to me to be like a mathematical system that only concerns itself with positive numbers.
– Paul Klee
When looking at any significant work of art, remember that a more significant one probably has had to be sacrificed.
– Paul Klee
Art does not reproduce what we see rather, it makes us see.
– Paul Klee