Kathe Kollwitz Quotes & Sayings

My work is not, of course, pure art in the sense that Schmidt-Rottluff's is, but it is art nonetheless ... It is all right with me that my work serves a purpose. I want to have an effect on my time, in which human beings are so confused and in need of help. — Kathe Kollwitz

How long were the stretches of toilsome tacking back and forth, of being blocked, of being thrown back again and again. But all that was annulled by the periods when I had my technique in hand and succeeded in doing what I wanted. — Kathe Kollwitz

It seems to me nowadays that the most important task for someone who is aging is to spread love and warmth whenever possible. — Kathe Kollwitz

Where do all the women who have watched so carefully over the lives of their beloved ones get the heroism to send them to face the cannon? — Kathe Kollwitz

For me the Koenigsberg longshoremen had beauty; the Polish jimkes on their grain ships had beauty; the broad freedom of movement in the gestures of the common people had beauty. Middle-class people held no appeal for me at all. — Kathe Kollwitz

Culture arises only when the individual fulfills his cycle of obligations. If everyone recognizes and fulfills his cycle of obligations, genuineness emerges. The culture of a whole nation can in the final analysis be built upon nothing else. — Kathe Kollwitz

Genius can probably run on ahead and seek out new ways. But the good artists who follow after genius - and I count myself among these - have to restore the lost connection once more. — Kathe Kollwitz

One day, a new ideal will arise, and there will be an end to all wars. I die convinced of this. It will need much hard work, but it will be achieved... The important thing, until that happens, is to hold one's banner high and to struggle... Without struggle there is no life. — Kathe Kollwitz

No longer diverted by other emotions, I work the way a cow grazes. — Kathe Kollwitz

I was put in this world to change it. — Kathe Kollwitz

I thought I was a revolutionary and was only an evolutionary. — Kathe Kollwitz

The development of the national spirit in its present form leads into blind alleys. Some condition must be found which preserves the life of the nation, but rules out the fatal rivalry among nations. — Kathe Kollwitz

I am in the world to change the world — Kathe Kollwitz

Look at life with the eyes of a child. — Kathe Kollwitz

There are moments on most days when I feel a deep and sincere gratitude, when I sit at the open window, and there is a blue sky or moving clouds. — Kathe Kollwitz

I am afraid of dying-but being dead, oh yes, that to me is often an appealing prospect. — Kathe Kollwitz

To this day I do not know whether the power which has inspired my works is something related to religion, or is indeed religion itself. — Kathe Kollwitz

I can always paint very well with my eyes, but with my hands it doesn't always work out. — Kathe Kollwitz

Bisexuality is almost a necessary factor in artistic production; at any rate, the tinge of masculinity within me helped me in my work. — Kathe Kollwitz

As in everything else, I find that age is not good for much, that one becomes deafer and less sensitive. Also, the higher up the mountain you climb, the less of a view you get. A mist closes in and cheats you of the hoped-for and expected opportunity to see far and wide ... — Kathe Kollwitz

While I drew, and wept along with the terrified children I was drawing, I really felt the burden I am bearing. I felt that I have no right to withdraw from the responsibility of being an advocate. — Kathe Kollwitz

It is my duty to voice the suffering of men, the never-ending sufferings heaped mountain-high. — Kathe Kollwitz

Recently I began reading my old diaries. Back to before the war. Gradually I became very depressed. The reason for that is probably that I wrote only when there were obstacles and halts to the flow of life, seldom when everything was smooth and even ... As I read I distinctly felt what a half-truth a diary presents. — Kathe Kollwitz

Men without joy seem like corpses. — Kathe Kollwitz

When Michelangelo was an old man, he drew himself sitting in a child's pushcart. — Kathe Kollwitz

Old ideas die hard. We've had thousands of years of women having almost no rights. Parts of the world are in a struggle toward very basic human rights for women, and most of the world isn't even there yet. And it's going to take a long time to change these attitudes. — Kathe Kollwitz

I want to cultivate the seed that was placed in me until the last small twig has grown. — Kathe Kollwitz

It is my duty to voice the sufferings of humankind, the never-ending sufferings heaped mountain high. This is my task, but it is not an easy one to fulfill. — Kathe Kollwitz

Growing old is partly an inescapable process of accommodation and adjustment. — Kathe Kollwitz

If all the people who have been hurt by the war were to exclude joy from their lives, it would almost be as if they had died. — Kathe Kollwitz

Every war carries within it the war which will answer it. Every war is answered by a new war, until everything, everything is smashed. — Kathe Kollwitz