“Why assume that to look is to see?”

“Today we haven't the heart to expel the painters and poets from society because we refuse to admit to ourselves that there is any danger in keeping them in our midst.”

“For a long time I limited myself to one colour - as a form of discipline.”

“All things considered, there is only Matisse.”

“If everybody is looking for it, then nobody is finding it. If we were cultured, we would not be conscious of lacking culture. We would regard it as something natural and would not make so much fuss about it. And if we knew the real value of this word we would be cultured enough not to give it so much importance.”

“I love a ballad but even too well if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.”

“If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue.”

“The object of Art is to give life a shape.”

“For the poor wren (The most diminutive of birds) will fight, Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.”

“I was a coward on instinct.”

“Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules, but beware instinct. The lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct is a great matter. I was a coward on instinct.”

“But men may construe things after their fashion, Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.”

“My meaning in saying he is a good man, is to have you understand me that he is sufficient.”

“Ha. "Against my will I am sent to bid you come into dinner." There's a double meaning in that. -Benedick (Much Ado)”

“O God, O God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!”

“I suppose an entire cabinet of shells would be an expression of the whole human mind; a Flora of the whole globe would be so likewise, or a history of beasts; or a painting of all the aspects of the clouds. Everything is significant.”

“For all symbols are fluxional; all language is vehicular and transitive, and is good, as ferries and horses are, for conveyance, not as farms and houses are, for homestead.”

“The field cannot be seen from within the field.”

“Intellect is void of affection and sees an object as it stands in the light of science, cool and disengaged. The intellect goes out of the individual, floats over its own personality, and regards it as a fact, and not as I and mine.”

“You must look at facts, because they look at you.”

“Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I; every man to his business.”

“But earthlier happy is the rose distill'dThan that which withering on the virgin thornGrows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.”

“What e'er thou art, act well thy part.”

“Late, by myself, in the boat of myself, no light and no land anywhere, cloudcover thick. I try to stay just above the surface, yet I'm already under and living within the ocean.”

“That which we are, we are all the while teaching, not voluntarily, but involuntarily.”

“Sleep takes off the costume of circumstance, arms us with terrible freedom, so that every will rushes to a deed.”