“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.”

“The mind of a painter should be like a mirror which is filled with as many images as there are things placed before him.”

“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.”

“My affection hath an unknown bottom, like the Bay of Portugal.”

“Some eyes threaten like a loaded and levelled pistol, and others are as insulting as hissing or kicking; some have no more expression than blueberries, while others are as deep as a well which you can fall into.”

“Under every deep a lower deep opens.”

“Some there be that shadows kiss; Such have but a shadow's bliss.”

“A dream itself is but a shadow.”

“Dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. And I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow's shadow.”

“Technique is really personality. That is the reason why the artist cannot teach it, why the pupil cannot learn it, and why the aesthetic critic can understand it.”

“The more technique there is, the less there is”

“I work with few colors, what creates the illusion of quantity is that they fell in the right place.”