Experience has two things to teach. The first is that we must correct a great deal and the second, that we must not correct too much.

Nourish yourself with grand and austere ideas of beauty that feed the soul Seek solitude.

Glory to that Homer of painting, to that father of warmth and enthusiasm... he really paints men.

I believe it safe to say that all progress must lead, not to further progress, but finally to the negation of progress, a return to the point of departure.

The source of genius is imagination alone, the refinement of the senses that sees what others do not see, or sees them differently.

I am carrying out my plan, so long formulated, of keeping a journal. What I most keenly wish is not to forget that I am writing for myself alone. Thus I shall always tell the truth, I hope, and thus I shall improve myself. These pages will reproach me for my changes of mind.

Real beauty in the arts is eternal and would be accepted at all periods; but it wears the dress of its century: something of that dress clings to it, and woe to the works which appear in periods when the general taste is corrupted.