Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
True artistry requires intense repetition to ensure every element feels intentional.
In plain terms
Repeat your work many times so nothing looks accidental.
What can you take from it?
Practice until every detail feels deliberate.

Where it applies

  • mastering a craft
  • performance
  • writing

Putting it to work

  • Repeat key movements
  • Review details
  • Eliminate accidents

Questions to consider

  • Is anything in your work left to chance?
  • How many times have you practiced?

Another view

Over-polishing can remove spontaneity and life from the work.

More from Edgar Degas

  1. Make a drawing. Start it all over again, trace it. Start it and trace it again.

    Permalink to quote #34
  2. Make people's portraits in familiar and typical attitudes.

    Permalink to quote #36
  3. Drawing is not what you see but what you must make others see.

    Permalink to quote #33

Related quotes

  1. The man who tells the tale if he has a tale worth telling will know exactly what he is about and this business of the artist as a sort of starry-eyed inspired …

    William GoldingWilliam Golding quote #2
  2. There is but one question ultimately to be asked respecting every line you draw, Is it right or wrong? If right, it most assuredly is not a 'free' line, but an…

    John RuskinJohn Ruskin quote #6
  3. For the first lesson, I want you to play over every column of Modern Chess Openings, including the footnotes. And for the next lesson, I want you to do it agai…

    Bobby FischerBobby Fischer quote #83