"If my painting depicts faithfully and without over-refinement the simple and true character of the place you have frequented, if I succeed.. ..in giving its own life to that world of vegetation, then you will hear the trees moaning under the winter wind, the birds that call their young and cry after their dispersion ; you will feel the old chateau tremble; it will tell you that, as the wife you loved, it too will.. ..disappear and be reborn in multiple forms.. One does not copy with mathematical precision what one sees, but one feels and interprets a real world, all of whose fatalities hold you fast bound."

“What has art to do with those things ? Art will never come except from some little disregarded corner where some isolated man is studying the mysteries of nature, fully assured that the answer which he finds and which is good for him is good also for humanity, whatever may be the number of succeeding generations.”

“biography-text of Th. Roussseau in 'The painters of Barbizon : Millet, Rousseau, Diaz', by John, W. Mollett, 1890”

“I thought only of one thing, to account to myself for the laws of light and perspective. I did not attach any importance to what they found original, new and romantic in me, I sought the picture.”

“Sir - Be good enough to allow me to address to you a rather important request with regard to a picture inscribed at the Ministry as ,_1837-42.jpg 'The Avenue' which at one time you kindly ordered from me. This picture.. ..makes me tremble in this exceptional case at the official destiny of my work. I should wish, as well as for another I am now finishing, to be able to give myself in public the advantage of a composition still more developed, and lending itself more to general acceptation. With the help of your goodness and your clear discernment everything will be arranged for the best, as has offered me a place for ,_1837-42.jpg 'The Avenue' in his gallery, and I would arrange with you to occupy myself with a picture, the same in substance, but with a further development. If you think you can accept my proposition, as I hope you will, you will render me a great service, as well as to, who honours me by anxiously wishing to have the picture..”

“biography-text of Th. Roussseau in 'Barbizon days : Millet - Corot - Rousseau - Barye', by Charles Sprague Smith, 1906”

“Do not be anxious about 'La Ferme' my dear Mr. Hartmann, I am anxious to establish in this picture such a decision deformed, that it may exist, independently of the caprices of the light, and of the influence of the hours of the day. I am regulating it, absolutely as a watchmaker regulates a watch after he has finished it.”