The speaking in a perpetual hyperbole is comely in nothing but love.

If you want to convey fact, this can only ever be done through a form of distortion. You must distort to transform what is called appearance into image.

Wise sayings are not only for ornament, but for action and business, having a point or edge, whereby knots in business are pierced and discovered.

The greatest vicissitude of things amongst men, is the vicissitude of sects and religions.

All authority must be out of a man's self, turned . . . either upon an art, or upon a man.

Neither the naked hand nor the understanding left to itself can effect much. It is by instruments and helps that the work is done, which are as much wanted for the understanding as for the hand. And as the instruments of the hand either give motion or guide it, so the instruments of the mind supply either suggestions for the understanding or cautions.

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.