Indiscriminate pursuit of perfection infallibly leads to mediocrity.
Tintoretto attempted to fill the line of Michelangelo with color, without tracing its principle.
Emulation embalms the dead; envy, the vampire, blasts the living.
Nature is a collective idea, and, though its essence exist in each individual of the species, can never in its perfection inhabit a single object.
Life is rapid, art is slow, occasion coy, practice fallacious, and judgment partial.
When we idealize the real, we sacrifice to artistic fancy.