Invention is nothing more than a fine deviation from, or enlargement on a fine model . . .

Art itself is essentially ethical; because every true work of art must have a beauty or grandeur of some kind, and beauty and grandeur cannot be comprehended by the beholder except through the moral sentiment. The eye is only a witness; it is not a judge. The mind judges what the eye reports to it; therefore, whatever elevates the moral sentiment to the contemplation of beauty and grandeur is in itself ethical.

Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm.

The real truthfulness of all works of imagination, sculpture, painting, and written fiction, is so purely in the imagination, that the artist never seeks to represent positive truth, but the idealized image of a truth

One vice worn out makes us wiser than fifty tutors.

Anger ventilated often hurries towards forgiveness; anger concealed often hardens into revenge.

In life, as in art, the beautiful moves in curves.