1. "We're having marvelous weather and I wish I could send you a little of the sunshine. I am slaving away on six paintings a day. I'm giving myself a hard time over it as I haven't yet managed to capture the color of this landscape, there are moments when I'm appalled at the colors 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."

2. "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."

3. "Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love."

4. "It's on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly."

5. "I am following Nature without being able to grasp her... I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers."

6. "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."

7. "I am completely absorbed by my work. These landscapes of water and reflections have become an obsession. They are beyond the strength of an old man, and yet I am determined to set down what I feel. I have destroyed some...I have begun others over again...and I hope that something will come of so much effort."

8. "I would advise young artists to paint as they can, as long as they can, without being afraid of painting badly. If their painting doesn't improve by itself, it means that nothing can be done -- and I wouldn't do anything!"

Hit paintings are treasures and some have tried to imitate, but none have been able to match his mastery. Let us remember to appreciate true genius when we see it and remember Claude Monet with these 8 great Monet quotes.