“The first object of the painter is to make a flat plane appear as a body in relief and projecting from that plane”

“Poor is the man who desires a lot”

“Things severed shall be united and shall acquire of themselves such virtue that they shall restore to men their lost memory: - That is the papyrus sheets, which are formed out of several strips and preserve the memory of the thoughts and deeds of men.”

“The wisest and noblest teacher is nature itself.”

“Oh! Speculators on things, boast not of knowing the things that nature ordinarily brings about; but rejoice if you know the end of those things which you yourself device.”

“At one side of the palette there is white, at the other black; and neither is ever used neat.”

“A heightened sense of the observation of nature is one of the chief delights that have come to me through trying to paint.”

“... painting a picture is like fighting a battle; and trying to paint a picture is, I suppose, like trying to fight a battle. It is, if anything, more exciting than fighting it successfully. But the principle is the same.”

“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.”

“Bounty, being free itself, thinks all others so.”

“He that is robbed, not wanting what is stolen, him not know t, and he's not robbed at all.”

“'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed, When not to be, receives reproach of being, And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed, Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing.”

“I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was.”

“What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!”

“Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feelings as to sight?”