I have to hope that my instincts will do the right thing, because I can't erase what I have done. And if I drew something first, then my paintings would be illustrations of drawings.

The surest way to prevent seditions...is to take away the matter of them.

I hold every man a debtor to his profession; from the which as men of course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavor themselves, by way of amends, to be a help and ornament thereunto.

One always starts work with the subject, no matter how tenuous it is, and one constructs an artificial structure by which one can trap the reality of the subject-matter that one has started from.

The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon.

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

The nature of things betrays itself more readily under the vexations of art than in its natural freedom.