There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.

Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.

I should have been, I don't know, a con-man, a robber or a prostitute. But it was vanity that made me choose painting, vanity and chance.

Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue.

In all superstition wise men follow fools.

An illustrational form tells you through the intelligence immediately what the form is about, whereas a non-illustrational form works first upon sensation and then slowly leaks back into the fact.

It is madness and a contradiction to expect that things which were never yet performed should be effected, except by means hitherto untried.