Much bending breaks the bow; much unbending the mind.

I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.

Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.

You want accuracy, but not representation. If you know how to make the figuration, it doesn't work. Anything you can make, you make by accident. In painting, you have to know what you do, not how, when you do it.

He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?.

We think according to nature. We speak according to rules. We act according to custom.

It's such an extraordinary supple medium that you never do quite know what paint will do.