Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.

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.

I think I tend to destroy the better paintings, or those that have been better to a certain extent. I try and take them further, and they lose all their qualities, and they lose everything. I think I would say that I destroy all the better paintings.

It cannot be denied that outward accidents conduce much to fortune, favor, opportunity, death of others, occasion fitting virtue; but chiefly, the mold of a man's fortune is in his own hands

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.

I want to make portraits and images. I don't know how. Out of despair, I just use paint anyway. Suddenly the things you make coagulate and take on just the shape you intend. Totally accurate marks, which are outside representational marks.

It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.