Nature is very rarely right, to such an extent even, that it might almost be said that nature is usually wrong.

Hang on the walls of your mind the memory of your successes. Take counsel of your strength, not your weakness. Think of the good jobs you have done. Think of the times when you rose above your average level of performance and carried out an idea or a dream or a desire for which you had deeply longed. Hang these pictures on the walls of your mind and look at them as you travel the roadway of life.

The vast majority of English folk cannot and will not consider a picture as a picture, apart from any story which it may be supposed to tell.

You shouldn't say it is not good. You should say, you do not like it; and then, you know, you're perfectly safe.

If other people are going to talk, conversation becomes impossible.

As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight and the subject-matter has nothing to do with harmony of sound or of color.

I can't tell you if genius is hereditary, because heaven has granted me no offspring.