"let the ignorant take note! if the artist does not throw himself into his work like Curtius into the gulf, like a soldier against a fortress, without counting the cost; and if, once within the breach, he does not labour like miner buried under a fallen roof; if, in short, he contemplates the difficulties instead of conquering them, one by one, like those lvoers in the fairy-tales who, to win their princesses, fought everrenewed enchantments; then the work remains unfinished, it perishes, is lost within the workshop, where production becomes impossible, and the artist is a looker-on at his talent's suicide...the soloution of the sculptor's tremendous problem is only to be found in untiring unremitting labour, for the material difficulties must be so completely mastered, the hand must be so disciplined, so ready and obedient, as to enable the sculptor to struggle, in a combat of spirit with spirit, with that inapprehensible moral element that he must transfigure and embody. if Paganini, who made the strings of his violin tell his whole soul, had let three days pass without practising, he would have lost, together with his power of expression,what he would call the register of his instrument, by which he meant the close union existin between the wood,bow, strings and himself. if this accord were broken, he would at once become no more than an ordinary violinist. constant labour is the law of art as well as the law of life, for art is the creative activity of the mind. and so great artists, true poets, do not wait for either commissions or clients; they create today, tomorrow, ceaselessly. and there results a habit of toil, a perpetual consciousness of the difficulties, that keeps them in a state of marriage with the Muse, and her creative forces...."

- cousin bette (balzac)