It would be unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.

Antiquities, or remnants of history, are, as was said, tanquam tabula naufragii: when industrious persons, by an exact and scrupulous diligence and observation, out of monuments, names, words, proverbs, traditions, private records and evidences, fragments of stories, passages of books that concern not story, and the like, do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of time.

He who desires solitude is either an animal or a god.

States are great engines moving slowly.

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.

I want a very ordered image, but I want it to come about by chance.

It's always hopeless to talk about painting - one never does anything but talk around it.